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STATE OF MONTANA 

Dangers and Chemistry 

of Fire 

* . , , l|4 4 jy ± } i v, • 

FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS 

? v ),i * *i •i - t i'V ! 

Prepared by CLARENCE MARIS, B. Sc., M. D. for 
the State Fire Marshal’s Department of Ohio 

Adopted by the Commissioner of Insurance of Montana for use in 
the public schools of said state; through the courtesy and with 
the permission of the State Fire Marshals Department of Ohio, 

Published in accordance with the provisions of the Act approved 
February 11, 1911, entitled: “An Act to Require the Instruction 
of Pupils in Public, Private or Parochial Schools in Fire Dan¬ 
gers and Means of Prevention Thereof.” 


19 11 


H. R. CUNNINGHAM, State Auditor and Commissioner of Insurance, Ex-officio 
E, HARMON, Superintendent of Public Instruction 
GEO. W. REIF, State Fire Marshal 
























STATE OF MONTANA 


Dangers and Chemistry 

of Fire 

FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS 


Prepared by CLARENCE iY|ARIS, B. Sc., M. D. for 
the State Fire Marshal’s Department of Ohio 


Adopted by the Commissioner of Insurance of Montana for use in 
the public schools of said state; through the courtesy and with 
the permission of the State Fire Marshal's Department of Ohio. 

Published in accordance with the provisions of the Act approved 
February 11, 1911, entitled: “An Act to Require the Instruction 
of Pupils in Public, Private or Parochial Schools in Fire Dan= 
gers and Means of Prevention Thereof.” 


19 11 


H. R. CUNNINGHAM, State Auditor and Commissioner of Insurance, Ex-officio 
W. E. HARMON, Superintendent of Public Instruction 
GEO. W. REIF, State Fire Marshal 





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The Holter Law. 

Twelfth Legislative Session—1911. 


CHAPTER 24.—H. B. 137. 

$ An Act To Require The Instruction Of Pupils In Public, 
Private Or Parochial Schools In Fire Dangers And Means 
of Prevention Thereof. 

Be it enacted by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Montana : 

Section 1. That every teacher or instructor in every pub¬ 
lic, private or parochial school consisting of more than ten pupils 
shall devote not less than fifteen minutes in each week during 
which school is in session to the intruction of pupils in fire 
dangers. 

For the purpose of such instruction it shall be the duty 
of the Commissioner of Insurance to prepare a book convenient¬ 
ly arranged in chapters, or lessons, such chapters or lessons 
to be in number sufficient to provide a different chapter or les¬ 
son for each week of the maximum school year, one of such 
lessons to be read by the teachers in such school each week; 
provided, that if it is advisable, and found possible, to secure 
such lessons as may have been prepared for this purpose, or 
in use, in another state, the same may be used in this state. 

The book shall be published at the expense of the state from 
the amount appropriated for public printing, under the direc¬ 
tion of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and 
shall be distributed in quantities sufficient to provide a copy 
for each teacher required by the provisions of this Act to give 
the instruction heren provided for the distribution to be made 
by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Section 2. Wilful neglect by any principal, or other per¬ 
son, in charge off any public, private or parochial school, to 
comply with the provisions of this Act shall be a misdemeanor, 
punishable, each offense, by a fine of not less than Five Dol¬ 
lars or more than Twenty Dollars. 

Section 3. This Act shall be in full force and effect on and 
after July 1, 1911. 

Section 4. All Acts and parts of Acts in conflict herewith 
are hereby repealed. 

Approved February 11, 1911. 




Introduction* 


In compliance with the provisions of the statute, herein¬ 
before noted, the Commissioner of Insurance, ex-officio, sub¬ 
mits a series of lessons relating to fire clangers, the causes 
thereof and means of prevention. These lessons have been 
adopted, in their entirety, from the lessons prepared for tiie 
State Fire Marshal’s Department of the State of Ohio, with 
the consent of said department, by the courtesy of Hon. John 
W. Zuber, Fire Marshal of Ohio. Some slight modifications 
or changes have been made, which in no way change the sense 
of the original Lessons. The first sixteen lessons, it is sug¬ 
gested, should be used in the Autumn, and the other twenty- 
four should be used from January to June, as the subjects 
referred to in the different distributions relate particularly to 
fires likely to occur in the respective seasons. 

It may be stated that these lessons have been carefully 
read and approved by Hon. George W. Reif, the State Fire 
Marshal, to whose department, more than any other, perhaps, 
the benefits derived from public instruction of this character 
will be of more than passing interest. 

The act above referred to is familiarly known as the 
“Hiolter Bill,” having been introduced in the Legislature by 
Hon. Albert L. Hotter, of Lewis and Clark County, whose 
energy and active support assisted materially in its passage. 

The lessons are now issued in cheap pamphlet form because 
it is desirable that the opinions of teachers in regard to the 
manner in which the subjects can best be presented, should be 
secured before they are put in a more expensive binding. 

Will you please, after having used some of the lessons and 
earlier than the holiday vacation, write the State Fire Marshal 
answering the following questions: 

Is the method of presentation good? 

Are the lessons couched in language simple enough to adapt 
them to children of the ages for which they are intended? 

Do the lessons awaken interest? 

Do the children appreciate the points? 

What suggestions, in general, can you offer to make more 



effective the attempt of the department to instruct the school 
children of Montana in this most important subject? 

A composite of the opinions of teachers will be used in re¬ 
writing the lessons before assembling them in binding for use 
in the future. 



State Auditor and Commissioner of Insurance, ex-officio. 


LESSON NO. i. 

Carelessness with Matches. 

BURNS BUILDINGS AND CHILDREN. 

Every year there are a number of children burned to death 
in the United States, and thousands of buildings are burned 
because people use matches carelessly. 

The matches we have are much nicer and cheaper than those 
used a few years ago. Our grandfathers had for matches pine 
blocks one inch square and one and a half inches long. The 
blocks were split part way down, so that a splinter could be 
pulled off. The loose end of the splinters had been dipped in 
a mixture with sulphur in it. When these matches were struck 
they had the bad, choking smell of burnng sulphur. They were 
called “Lucifer” matches. Can you tell why they were given 
that name? The match we use was called the “parlor match,” 
because it was fit for use when there was “company” in the 
parlor. 

KEEPING FIRE. 

Our grandfathers’ grandfathers had no matches. They 
kept fire from day to day and week to week in the open fire¬ 
place by covering live coals or brands with ashes. If the coals 
died, as they sometimes did, the children were sent to a neigh¬ 
bor’s to get some. If there was no neighbor near the father 
would spread some flaxen tow on the hearth and pour a little 
powder over it from his hunter’s horn. Then he would take a 
piece of flint and strike it with a piece of steel, while holding 
both over the tow. Sparks would fly from the flint, the powder 
would flash and light the tow. The flint commonly used was 
an Indian arrowhead. 

THE PARLOR MATCH. 

We must be careful when we use parlor matches. When 
they are scratched, the heads often explode, or the sticks break 
and flaming pieces fly. These often set fire to waste paper, 
sweepings, lace curtains, and people’s clothing. Careless per¬ 
sons throw matches down, after using them, without looking 
to see if they are still glowing. If match sticks are burned 
through they will sometimes remain red hot for as long as a 
minute. These red hot match sticks are thrown on waste stuff 
and they cause a large part of the fires. 


— 7 — 


WICKED CARELESSNESS. 

It is wicked carelessness to leave matches lying about be¬ 
cause they are so easily lighted. The sun’s rays coming through 
a bubble in the window glass, a fish globe, a water bottle, a 
round paper weight, or grandma’s spectacles will light the 
match they shine upon. If matches are loose in drawers, or 
on desks, they may take fire from something hitting or rub¬ 
bing them. The heat from a stove or grate may light them, 
if they are left on the mantel. They may be brushed off a shelf 
or mantel, and be stepped upon, and lighted. 

WHERE MATCH FIRES START. 

Nearly all of the match fires start in the cellar; but never a 
week passes without a house being burned by some careless 
person who lights a match to hunt for something in a closet. 
A number of women have been burned to death by stepping 
upon and lighting matches. The wife of the poet, Henry W. 
Longfellow, was burned to death by a lighted match which 
she let fall upon the floor. It set fire to her thin summer dress. 
That was long ago, and many people have been burned to death 
since then, in the same way. AVe cannot be too careful. 

THE HEAD OF THE MATCH. 

The head of the match is made of phosphorus, chlorate of 
potash, rosin, whiting and powdered flint, held together by 
glue. The rubbing of the flint makes enough heat to fire the 
phosphorus; the chlorate lets go of the oxygen in it with an 
explosion and great heat. This heat fires the rosin, and then 
the paraffin in which the match stick was soaked takes fire 
and the stick itself begins to burn. If either saltpeter or sul¬ 
phur is used in place of chlorate of potash a silent and slow 
match is made which does not snap and fly. When the chlorate, 
or “parlor match” is stepped upon it sounds its own fire-alarm— 
this is the only good thing about it. 

THE BIRD’S EYE MATCH. 

A new kind of match, called the “bird’s eye,” or double 
tipped, is now made in all the match factories. It is kept in 
many grocery stores. There is less danger in using this new 
match than there is inu sing the parlor match. Fires, caused 
by carelessness in the use of parlor matches, destroy millions of 
dollars’ worth of property in the United States every year, and 
hundreds of lives are lost. 


—s— 


HOW ARE THE HEADS OF BIRD’S EYE MATCHES MADE? 

The ends of the sticks are dipped into a mixture that has 
no phosphorus in it. After drying- they are dipped just a little 
way into a mixture of a different color. This mxture has phos¬ 
phorus in it. You remember that phosphorus was used in mak¬ 
ing the head 1 of the ‘‘parlor match phosphorus burns easily, 
and if the bird’s eye matches are struck lightly on the tip they 
will burn, but they will not snap and fly to pieces, as the parlor 
matches do. Pieces of flying parlor match heads burned to 
death, in one week, two women and two babies in one State 
alone. 

When bird’s eye matches are rubbed by things that are 
moved over them, they do not light, because the very middle 
of the match head, the “eve,” is not touched. When the eye 
is lightly rubbed the match lights and you do not have to 
scratch it hard enough to knock the head off, or break the 
match stick. Of course it will burn when it is crushed, the 
same as the parlor match. It is more likely to light from a 
bump on its eye than is the parlor match. 

Many houses are burned and many lives are lost in a year 
by the careless use of matches. Do not carry matches in your 
pockets. 

NOTE—The paragraph giving the composition of parlor match heads 
may be omitted, if it seems too difficult for the comprehension of children. 

There being more lessons provided than there are weeks in the school 
year, the rural teacner will be able to omit lessons on dangers peculiar to 
cities and vice versa. 


LESSON NO. 2. 

The Safety Match. 

L’HJli MATCH MACHINES AKE MADE IN OHIO. 

The “safety" match can be lighted only on the box in which 
it is sold. It is the only match for sale which is safe to have 
in a house. It is made of the same wood, and with the same 
machinery as the parlor match ; but the mixture into which it 
is dipped, to make the head, has no phosphorus in it. The 
phosphorus is in the mixture which is spread upon the box. 

RUBBED ON THE BOX. 

When the “safety” match is rubbed upon the box, it lights; 
but it will not light unless it is rubbed over the phosphorus 
mixture on the box. When the mother rat takes these safety 
matches home for her babies to play with, or for the father rat 
to use in filing down his eye teeth, there is no danger of the 
house burning down. 

SOAKING THE STICK. 

The sticks of all safety matches are soaked in some fluid 
which prevents any red-hot coal being left after the match is 
lighted and used. All other matches leave a red-hot coal, which 
may set fire to anything upon which they are thrown. 

Some square matches are made in Sweden, of wood from 
the fir or aspen tree; some are made of bass and cottonwood. 
All of these hold a red-hot coal much longer than pine. That 
makes them more dangerous unless they have been dipped 
into the fluid into which safety matches are dipped. All round 
match sticks are made of pine from the Northwest, or from 
New York and Pennsylvania. 

WIND MATCHES. 

Smokers often use a kind of match which will light out- 
doors, in a wind. The heads of these matches splutter a great 
deal, and make a bad, choking smell. The smoker wishes to 
get rid of such matches as soon as he can, after using them, 
and so he throws them away, while still flaming. The match 
does not go out, even when thrown against a wall twenty feet 
away. This makes it a very dangerous match to use. When 
the flame dies down, a red-hot coal is left, and this will set. 
fire to any dry stuff it falls upon. 


AMERICAN MATCH MAKERS. 

The American “parlor match” is used by people of Great 
Britain, South America and South Africa, although many in 
those countries have been burned to death while using it. 

The machine which makes parlor matches was patented in 
Ohio. It is not made in any other state. It costs only one 
cent to make a hundred parlor matches with this machine. 

The 80 million people in America use as many matches as 
the 800 million in the rest of the world. 

A machine makes from four to seven million matches a day. 
It costs no more to make safety matches than it does to make 
the common parlor matches. There should be a law that would 
stop the use of any but safety matches. 


—II— 


LESSON NO. 3. 

Death from Playing with Matches. 

FIRE-PROOFING MUSLINS. 

I hirty-six women and children were burned to death, in 
Ohio, in 1907, by having their clothing set afire by matches. 
The thirty little children played with matches which had been 
left lying about, and the six women had their clothing set 
afire by glowing match sticks, or flying match heads. 

Beside these, there were five mothers who died while trying 
to save the lives of their burning children. 

Children playing with matches set afire 118 buildings which 
it will take a great deal of hard work to rebuild. 

Parlor matches burn to death between 800 and 900 people 
each year, in the United States. Every year at least 100 chil¬ 
dren in Ohio- are badly burned by these dangerous playthings, 
these “parlor matches.” 

TYPICAL STORIES OF DEATHS. 

The newspapers tell of many people who- are burned to 
death by the careless use of matches. Among other stories 
they tell of Alice Heffron, who tried to light the gasolene 
stove, and the head of the match flew off and set fire to a 
cotton cloth. The cotton cloth was on the back of the chair 
where Alice was sitting. Her dress caught fire and she died 
after suffering terribly. 

“Charlie Reel, the four-year-old son of Charles Reel, died 
Saturday morning from burns. The little fellow’s clothing 
was flaming when they found him. Just before he died, he 
said: ‘Mamma, I don’t Avant any more matches.’ ” 

One woman was burned to death by a match head, which 
snapped off and set her cotton clothing ablaze. She had struck 
the match on the sole of her shoe, a dangerous thing to do. 

COTTON CLOTHING. 

Clothing made of cotton, such as muslin, calico, flannelette, 
is very easily set afire. In one state alone 125 died in one 
year from having their cotton clothing burned. 

Each grate, fireplace, and open stove should have in front 
of it a wire screen, such as parents use to keep the babies from 
falling into the fire. Every fire makes an upward current of air 
in a room, and this current will draw any light stuff which 
comes near it into the flame. Often children’s dresses or 


aprons are drawn into the dame and the children are burned. 

Dresses and aprons that touch a red-hot stove will blaze. 
It isn’t necessary for a stove to be kept red-hot in order to 
cook and heat well. 

Parents should refuse to buv anv cotton goods that have 
not been made fire-proof. By “fire-proof” we mean cotton 
goods that have been dipped in something that will keep them 
from burning. 

Thirty years ago the chemist in Bellevue Hospital Medical 
College lost his only little bov; his dress took fire from a grate. 
The chemist worked a long time to find something that would 
make cotton cloth fire-proof. He found that if he soaked the 
cloth in water having phosphate of ammonia dissolved in it, 
the goods would not burn. They would only char where the 
flame touched them. This chemist spent years in writing 
and lecturing about fire-proof clothes, but those who made 
the cotton cloths would not heed him. If the mothers of Mon¬ 
tana would say that cotton cloths must be made fire-proof, the 
men who weave the cloths would have to make them fire¬ 
proof. 

TO SAVE LIVES. 

A mother can make clothes fire-proof after they are ready 
to wear. She can dip them in a mixture of ammonium sul¬ 
phate (eight parts by weight), ammonium carbonae (two and 
a half parts), borax (two parts), boracic acid (three parts), 
starch (two parts), and water (ioo parts). This has been 
used in Germany for a long time. 

The United States Consul at Nottingham, England, has 
told the United States government that the dyers who met 
at Manchester, England, claimed that clothing soaked in titanic 
acid would not blaze. It would smoulder, but not burst into 
flame. 

Boiling does not remove the chemicals, and it costs only 
one-seventh of a cent a yard to make cotton cloth fire-proof. 


—13 


LESSON NO. 4. 

The Coal Oil or Kerosene Lamp. 

THE CHEMISTRY OF FIRE. 

Lamps explode and careless people break them. That is 
why so many little children are badly burned, and some are 
burned to death. When a lamp explodes, or is broken, burn¬ 
ing oii is thrown over all the people who are near it, and their 
clothing begins to> burn upon their bodies. 

Kerosene, or coal oil, as it is often called, comes from petro¬ 
leum oil. Petroleum oil is pumped from very deep holes in 
the ground. It is found in a number of the states of our 
country. 

This oil is black, like tar, when it comes from the ground. 
It is cooked in a place that is called a petroleum refinery. 
When it is cooked it changes to steam, or vapor. The first 
vapor that rises is cooled by passing through pipes under wa¬ 
ter, and it is then called gasolene. The vapor that comes from 
the petroleum, after the gasolene is taken away, is called coal 
oil, or kerosene. They get three quarts of kerosene from four 
quarts of petroleum. After the gasolene and coal oil are taken 
out of the petroleum, what is left is made into paraffin, vase¬ 
line, and 123 other things which can be sold. 

The natural gas now used in a number of towns in the 
United States is this same vapor of petroleum, which comes 
from deep wells. 

THE COAL OIL LAMP. 

While the lamp burns, the oil slowly disappears. It is such 
a thin oil that it is drawn quickly to the top of the lamp-wick. 
There it waits until the match fiame touches it. The oil is 
made of atoms of carbon and hydrogen, loosely fastened to¬ 
gether. The match flame is like a fairy’s wand; when it 
touches the wick the oil separates into the two things of 
which it is made. These atoms of carbon and hydrogen are 
anxious to get all the oxygen they can out of the air in the 
room. (Oxygen is the very life of the air; we all need oxygen 
to keep us alive, and that is why we should have plenty of 
clean, pure air to breathe.) 

Before the flame loosened the atoms, they could not join 
themselves to the oxygen but when they are free, each of the 
greedy little atoms of carbon seizes two atoms of oxygen, 
and they form carbonic acid. Each pair of hydrogen atoms 


-14- 


takes one atom of oxygen, and they form water. The car¬ 
bonic acid is a gas, and the water is in the form of vapor. They 
are carried out of the top of the chimney. The next time you 
see a lamp burning, try to remember just what is happening 
to the oil. 

Gunpowder and dynamite do not need air to burn them, 
because they have oxygen within them. They can be set 
afire by a spark, while shut in a gun or cannon. The great 
noise of the explosion is made when the gunpowder or dy¬ 
namite is so quickly changed to gas, for the gas takes up hun¬ 
dreds of times as much room as the gunpowder did. 

THE USE OF THE CHIMNEY. 

The lamp chimney makes the air that rises through it pass 
very close to the flame so that the carbon and hydrogen, wait¬ 
ing in the wick can take the oxygen from the air. While the 
carbon is burning it becomes white hot and that makes the 
light. 

Do not try to blow out the flame of a lamp until you have 
turned the wick down. If you blow it while it is turned high 
you may break the chimney or force the flame down into the 
bowl of the lamp where the oil is; this will cause an explosion. 
When the lamp is not lighted keep the wick turned down be¬ 
low the top of the tube. If it is left turned up, oil will run 
down on the outside of the lamp. 

HOW DOES A LAMP EXPLODE? 

Sometimes the brass in the burner is so warm that it heats 
the oil until it gives off a kind of steam, or vapor. If the wick 
does not fit well in the tube, the flame will flash down to this 
vapor, and the lamp will blow up. It will blow up if the va¬ 
por can get out through a hole in the collar of the lamp, and 
reach the flame. 

See that the wick fits the tube, and that the collars and 
burners of your lamps are kept clean and bright, so that the 
heat will pass off. Only dirty burners heat the lamps and 
make them blow up. 

FILLING THE LAMP. 

If you have been burning a lamp and it needs to be filled, 
do not take off the burner near a light or fire. The vapor in the 
bowl of your lamp may rush out to the light or fire, and 
explode. Then flaming oil will be thrown over all who are 
near. Never fill a lamp while it is lighted. Many persons are 
burned to death because they do not put the light out before 
they fill the lamp. 

There are a number of houses burned each week by the 
explosion or upsetting of coal oil lamps or lanterns. Those 
burned in one state in 1907 cost $168,000. 


- 15 - 

LESSON NO. 5. 

Kindling a Fire; 

DAJNGHK, UNI KJiiKOSEjN'i±3 FOK THAT USE. 

Never try to start a fire with coal oil. It is one of the most 
dangerous things you can do. 

If a shaving or bit of paper is held above a lamp, you all 
know that it will first turn brown, and then flash. It is a 
gas that has been roasted out of the paper which flashes. After 
the flash has added its heat the shaving or paper will burn 
to ashes. In Ohio coal oil has to be tried, or tested, to see how 
hot it will get before it flashes. If it flashes before it is heated 
to 120 degrees, it must not be sold for making a light. We 
think that it is a very warm summer day when it is 90 degrees 
in the shade and in Ohio coal oil must be able to bear 30 de¬ 
grees more of heat than that without “flashing.” 

It takes little flame to light a thin piece of wood, and so 
“kindling wood” is used. 

BEGINNING WITH A MATCH. 

We begin by heating the little piece of wood in a match so 
that it will flame. With that flame we light a piece of paper 
or shavings, and they make enough heat to set fire to our 
kindling wood. The kindling wood burns and makes heat 
enough to fire the coal. Anthracite, or hard coal, takes more 
heat to make it burn than the bituminous or soft coal takes. 
A pound of coal gives off as much heat as three pounds of 
dry wood. The water in green wood (wood that is newly 
cut) weighs half as much as the wood itself. You see that 
a great deal of heat is needed to make green wood burn. 

USING COAL OIL. 

Coal oil, or kerosene as it is properly called, starts a fire 
in a hurry, because it gives off six times as much heat as wood 
in burning, and it can be lighted with a match. It can never 
be used safely unless the stove is quite cold. If there is the 
tiniest blaze in the stove, or even one red coal in the ashes, 
there is an explosion as soon as the coal oil is put in the stove. 
If there is no blaze and no hot coal, but the stove is warm, 
the explosion will not come at once. It will take place when 
the person building the fire strikes a match. 

Every week the newspapers tell of some one who used kero¬ 
sene in lighting a fire, and was burned to death. This is only 


—16— 


one of the newspaper stories: “Mrs. Wood, on returning 
from church last evening, found the house cold. ( She poured 
coal oil on the dying embers and an explosion followed. Fear 
made her helpless and the angry flames burned her clothing. 
Friends found her unconscious and in two hours she died.” 

One paper tells of the death of a Mrs. Litz. “She was 
expecting her husband home soon to supper and was in a hurry 
to start the fire. She filled the stove with wood and poured 
coal oil on it. An explosion followed and Mrs. Litz, with 
her clothing and hair in flames, rushed around the front yard 
screaming in her terrible agony. In a few minutes she fell, 
dying. Her child of six months was burned in the building.” 

BURNED T'O DEATH. 

There are quite a number of people burned to death in the 
United States in a year, from using coal oil to quicken a fire. 
The number badly burned is three times as large. 

The use of gasolene to start a fire always leads to a serious 

o 

accident. Never use it. 


LESSON NO. 6. 

Stoves for Cooking and Heating; 

HOW TO LESSEN DANGERS FROM THEM. 

I housands of dollars are lost every year by careless per¬ 
sons who put too much wood or coal in the stove at one 
time. The stoves are made red-hot and then the woodwork 
around them takes fire. 

If the walls behind the stoves and the floors under them 
were covered by tin or zinc, the buildings would not burn. 
A roaring fire often carries sparks up the chimney and these 
may set fire to the roof, or the soot in the chimney may burn 
and so set fire to the roof. 

Never close the door of a heating stove, and then leave 
the room for any length of time, when there is a good fire 
burning in the stove. The strong draft may make the stove 
red-hot and set fire to the house. 

Here are a few things we should never do: Never leave 
wood or kindling over night in a warm oven. Never leave 
clothing hanging close to the stove, either on a clothes-horse 
or chair back. Never place clothing that has been cleaned 
with gasolene near any fire. 

If the wood of the wall or floor turns brown it has been 
heated until it is changing to charcoal. If this charcoal is 
heated as much as the wood was heated when it turned brown 
it will take fire. If grease or w r ater gets into this brown wood 
(or charcoal), it may take fire even when there is no heat near 
it. 

Stoves must be at least one and a half feet from the walls, 
and if they cannot be farther away than that, there must be 
a sheet of tin, zinc, or sheet iron put over the plaster or 
woodwork. The sheet of metal should not be fastened tightly 
to the wall for the air must have a chance to get behind it 
and keep it cool. A good way is to hang the sheet of metal 
loosely on screw-hooks. Bright tin reflects heat better than 
zinc or sheet iron. 

All stoves should have iron legs. The sheet of metal should 
run up back of the hot stovepipe for a yard, at least. If the 
elbow of the stovepipe is within a foot of the ceiling, sheet- 
metal should be placed above it. 

A wooden floor under a stove should have on it a sheet 
of metal extending out a foot in front of the ashpan. If wood 

o 


is burned in the stove, the sheet of metal should extend out a 
foot beyond the oven door. As very hot coals may fall and make 
charcoal of the wood under the sheet of metal, it is a wise thing 
to put a sheet of asbestos cloth under the sheet of metal on 
the floor. 

A parlor or a bed-room stove should have metal behind it 
and under it, so that the walls and floors will not take fire. 
Do not fill the stove full of coal and then leave it for the night, 
as coal swells while it is burning, and hot coals are likely to 
fall out of the open door or over the grate-bar. 

STOVE EXPLOSIONS. 

Do not put a great amount of fine (slack) coal on a fire. 
It makes a thick smoke which may explode when a blaze starts. 
The blaze sets fire to gas in the smoke, and the tiny bits of 
carbon which make smoke black. It was a smoke explosion 
that spread the fire which burned the business part of Balti¬ 
more a few years ago. At Lindsey, Ohio, a smoke explosion 
blew a stove into 140 pieces. 

A fire may come from grease or fat boiling over on a cook- 
stove. Don’t throw water on it, for that will spread the blaze. 
Use ashes, baking soda or salt to smother it. 

The cotton clothing of women and children easily takes 
fire when it touches the stove, calico will blaze up if it touches 
iron that is heated only to a dark red. There are many stories 
like this, which we find in the papers: “Iris, the eight-year- 
old daughter of Harvey Rizor, was burned to death on Sun¬ 
day. Her clothing caught fire from the stove.” 

Reports of all the fires are sent to the state fire marshal 
and many of these reports tell of fires caused by stoves which 
are allowed to become too hot—“over-heated stoves.” If a 
stove is sound and whole, and is far enough away from the 
floor and wall, it cannot fire the house, even if it is red-hot. 
But many persons use stoves with cracks in them. Burning 
coals fall from them and soon the house is in flames. When 
a piece of the stove cracks, or breaks, a new piece should be 
put in its place. 


- 19 - 


LESSON NO. 7. 

Open Fireplaces and Grates; 

MANY ARE BURNED BY THEM. 

When your grandmother’s mother was a little girl, the 
open fireplace, with its andirons, swinging crane, and broad 
hearth of stone could be seen in every farm-house. The wood 
was laid on the andirons, the kettle hung from the crane over 
the hot fire and the turkey swung from the crane when roast¬ 
ing for Thanksgiving dinner. The bread was baked in tightly- 
covered skillets, with hot coals under them and resting on the 
covers. 

We do not often see the cheerful wood fire in the open fire¬ 
place in these days, because wood costs too much now. There 
are dangers in a wood fire; little bits of burning wood may be 
drawn up the broad chimney to fall upon the roof, and hot 
coals may be snapped out into the room. 

GRATES FOR COAL. 

Clinkers should not be allowed to stay in the bottom of 
coal grates. When fresh coal is piled on them, it comes so 

near the top of the grate that it often falls out. While coal 

is burning it swells and, although the grate may be none too 

full when the fire is lighted, it is much too full when the coal 

grows hot and swells. It is then that the hot coals roll down 
onto the carpet. 

Mrs. Hannah Hatfield was standing near an open fireplace, 
ironing, when a lump of coal rolled from the grate and set 
fire to her dress. She rushed into the yard and rolled on the 
ground to put out the fire, but she died from her burns. 

The brick or stone hearth in front of a grate should be 
at least two feet wide. Hot coals falling from grates set fire 
to many houses each year. 

When a blower is used to start a fire, or make it burn brisk¬ 
ly, it should be watched every moment, or sparks and red-hot 
pieces of kindling will be carried out upon the roof. News¬ 
papers used to fan the flames often take fire and burn stuff on 
the mantel. A big fire may burn the mantel coverings, or 
set fire to matches on the mantel. 

“While Stella Allison was dusting the mantelpiece, lief 
apron was drawn into the grate, and set afire. Instantly ah 
of her clothing was ablaze. The flame was put out by rolling 


— 20 — 


her in bed clothes, but she died in agony in a few hours.” 

Coal sometimes snaps and flies into the room because the 
natural gas in it explodes.- This may happen in coal not yet 
hot enough to fire a carpet or rug. 

TO PROTECT BABY. 

Every open grate should have a wire fender in front of 
it. This will keep little children from falling into it, and 
the older ones from setting fire to their clothing by going too 
near to it. 

“The four-year-old daughter of James Fuller was push¬ 
ed into the grate by her six-vear-old brother while playing and 
burned so badly that she died/’ 

Another sad story is of a death caused by burns from an 
open gas fire: 

“In passing too near a gas grate in her home in Newburg, 
the clothing of Harriet Green, four years old, daughter of the 
city solicitor of that town, caught fire and she was fatally 
burned.” 


- 21 - 


LESSON NO. 8. 

Fires from Chimneys; 

PUTTING OUT THE BURNING SOOT. 

A flue is a tube through which the smohe passes from the 
fire up into the open air. From the stove to the chimney the 
smoke passes, through a stovepipe, which is a tube of sheet 
iron. The chimney is that part of the flue which is in the wall 
of the house, or against it. The chimney is made of brick, 
stone, concrete or mud. 

Woodwork must never be close to a flue or it will burn. If 
there are cracks in the flue, sparks may fly out into the room 
and set fire to the house. Every day such cracks in flues cause 
two or more fires in our state. It costs, on an average, about 
$680 to replace what one fire burns. If chimneys and stove¬ 
pipes were looked at once a week, and mended when they 
were out of order, a great deal of money would be saved. 

Chimneys and stovepipes should be cleaned and repaired 
before cold weather comes. The first hard frost is most likely 
to come between the 20th and 30th of September. Chimneys 
should be cleaned and mended before the middle of September, 
and stovepipes should be taken down and cleaned. When coal 
is burned there is always soot to be brushed out of the chim¬ 
ney and stovepipe. 

If natural gas is burned there is very little soot to take 
away but the gas makes the mortar in the chimney crumble 
and fall and this mortar is liable to choke the small stovepipe. 
If the pipe should get full of crumbs of mortar, persons sleep¬ 
ing in the room would be choked to death by smoke. The 
mortar between the bricks crumbles because there is no heavy 
coat of soot to protect it from the acid fumes in the smoke. 

WHY CHIMNEYS CRACK. 

Holes in flues may be caused in many ways. The founda¬ 
tion of the chimney is that which it rests upon, and if the 
foundation settles, or sinks, a little, cracks will come in the 
chimney. If the brick is soft and crumbles, or the mortar falls 
out, cracks may be left and through these cracks sparks can 
fly out and set fire to the house. 

Chimneys made of brick are often built up from joists and 
if the joists twist the chimney cracks. Such chimneys often 
rest on a plank with nothing but a layer of mortar over the 


? 


- 22 - 


plank to keep it from burning. Such chimneys cause many 
of our fires. Tile chimneys of all sorts are unsafe, because 
they are very likely to crack off when they reach the roof where 
the cold air strikes them. 

If the stovepipe is not closely joined to the chimney, burn¬ 
ing soot or sparks may pass out through a crack and start a 
fire. Such fires usually start in dry attics, and, before any one 
knows it, they are burning fiercely. 

The flue in a chimney should be one-tenth the size of the 
fireplace it comes from. Chimneys should always be built 
from the cellar, and have a well-fitted iron door at the bottom 
through which soot can be cleaned out. 

As soot is nothing but many tiny grains of charcoal, it 
burns very easily and gives out great heat. When it is burn¬ 
ing there is a strong draft up the chimney, and the many small 
pieces of glowing charcoal are blown all over the roof. 

To put out soot fires throw on common salt. If there is 
sulphur in the house use that, as it is better than salt. It 
sometimes will put out a fire even after the woodwork around 
the chimne}^ has been lighted. 

Bad flues (chimneys and stovepipes) are the cause of the 
greatest number of house fires. 


/ 


- 23 - 


LESSON NO. 9. 

Stovepipes and Smoke. 

HOW TO FEED A STOVE. 

Many buildings burn because stovepipes become red hot 
and fire the walls behind them. A good cleaning of pipes 
shows loose joints, rust holes, and open seams. There is more 
heat from a clean stovepipe, than from one lined with soot, be¬ 
cause soot holds heat better than a feather bed holds it. If 
the stovepipe is kept clean, the heat will come out through 
the thin iron of the pipe, and warm the room well. 

If there is an elbow in the stovepipe, the sparks cannot 
fly straight up. They are given a chance to get cooled off 
before they reach the dry roof. When they reach the elbow 
in the pipe, they are likely to bump in making the turn and 
fall down without doing any harm. While a fire is burning, 
the air in the chimney travels at the rate of three to six feet 
a second. 

WHY DOES A FLUE DRAW? 

When air is warmed it swells, just as a sponge swells when 
it is wet. ■ The warm air takes up more room than the cold air 
around it. It is lighter than before and the heavier cold air 
forces it up above it, just as the cork of a fishing line is forced 
to the top of the water when a fish lets go after pulling it 
under. 

After the pipe is put up, see that it is not pushed into the 
flue so far as to choke it. It should be pushed in far enough 
to stay in place. See that there are no holes in the pipe where 
the sparks can fly out into the room. 

Never stuff rags or paper into a stovepipe hole in the chim¬ 
ney. _ Never cover such a hole with paper. It must be cov¬ 
ered closely with a sheet iron cover. 

Pipes that are not exactly the same size must not be put 
together, or there will be room for sparks to fly out. A stove¬ 
pipe should go into a chimney, and not pass through a roof 
or wall—even of a summer kitchen. Sparks from it may light 
the shingles, or bird’s nests in the eaves. If a pipe must pass 
through wood or plaster, it should have around it a double 
collar of tin, zinc or sheet iron. The double collar should have 
a space at least one inch wide, between its two parts, so that 
cool air can pass through it. 

Ever” autunw all stovepipes should be well cleaned—not 


’ — 24 — 


shaken, or wiped out, but scraped. If the pipes are not scraped, 
we shall not find all the weak, thin places and holes in them. 
Rust often covers the holes and falls off after the pipe is put up. 

SMOKE. 

% 

When you see smoke coming from a chimney, it shows that 
fuel is being wasted. If a fire in a stove has just enough air, 
and room enough in which to use the air, the smoke is noth¬ 
ing but carbonic acid gas and vapor of water, which cannot 
be seen. Smoke that can be seen is made black by very small 
pieces of soot, and soot is unburned carbon or that part of 
the wood or coal which did not burn. Smoke that can be 
seen shows that money is being wasted. 

THE GASES. 

The carbon is but a small part of the waste. Some of the 
gases roasted out of the coal do not burn. When all of these 
gases burn, the fire is made hotter. If the fire were given air 
enough, the- soot and gases would have burned. 

To get all the heat from coal, do not put too much on the 
fire at once; feed it in shovelfuls—not in bucketfuls. If too 
much is put on at once, much of the soot and the gases will 
go out into the air to poison plants and soil our faces and 
clothes. When any fuel is given just air enough to make it 

burn as it should, a gas will pass off from it which is good 

food for plants. If the fuel does not burn perfectly, the smoke 
will have sulphur in it, and sulphur poisons plants. 

Never cover all of the fire with coal. It will keep the air 
it needs from being drawn through it. The smoke from fac¬ 
tories poisons the air of cities, puts grime on the wall paper, 

smudges the tablecloth, and ruins the health of the people. 
Smoke will not be seen in a few years, if all the cities will 
make laws against it. Every factory owner will save money 
by having the right kind of a furnace under the boiler in his 

factory. The right kind of a furnace will burn all the fuel, 

and not let it go out of the chimney to make dirt and sickness. 

When smoke appears in the school room or there is a cry 
of “fire” wait for the teacher to tell you what to do. You may 
lose your life if you do not. 

One hundred and sixty-four children lost their lives in the 
burning schoolhouse at Collinwood, near Cleveland. They 
did not mind their teachers in the fire drill. In their fright 
they piled up against the door. Many of them did not suffer 
from being burned, because the gases from the flames put them 
to sleep before the fire reached them. 


- 25 - 

LESSON NO. io. 

Sparks Start Many Fires. 

WHAT IS A SPARK? 

A spark is a small piece of white-hot carbon, a glowing 
bit of charcoal, which breaks away from anything that is 
burning. It escapes, or breaks away, because the force of 
the hot air going upward is strong enough to carry any¬ 
thing light up with it. The smaller the spark is, the sooner 
it cools. 

Some kinds of wood give oft' more sparks than others in 
burning. Hickory gives off the greatest number, and buck¬ 
eye the least. There is more danger from sparks in burning 
shavings than in burnig sticks, because the draft of a chimney 
is so likely to carry pieces of burning shavings up and drop 
them on the roof. Wood makes more sparks in burning than 
soft coal makes, and soft coal makes more than hard coal. 
Hard (or anthracite) coal makes very few sparks. 

It is estimated that more than one-third of the loss by fire 
is from flying sparks. In one year many buildings are burned 
by sparks. The greatest number of fires are caused by sparks, 
drawn up through the flues, falling on shingle roofs. The other 
buildings are fired by sparks which escaped through cracks in 
chimneys and open joints in stovepipes. 

The boy who invents a screen or some other thing which 
will stop sparks from flying oat of chimney tops will surely 
make a fortune if his invention does not spoil the draft of 
the flue. 

« 

It is a good practice to paint shingle roofs. Paint not only 
makes them less likely to rot, but prevents the forming of fuzz 
on them. This fuzz is a very fine, small kindling and is easily 
lighted by a spark. The fuzz which forms on beams and 
boards in factories, stables, sheds, and fences, is likely to take 
fire from flying sparks. If the beams and boards are white¬ 
washed, there is no more danger. Whitewash holds down 
the fuzz and the slaked lime in the whitewash prevents the 
wood taking fire easily. The whitewash brush sweeps away 
the cobwebs which often catch sparks. 

Sparks start a few fires in rubbish, leaves, and dead grass, 
and many buildings are destroyed by sparks that fly from burn¬ 
ing piles of rubbish at house-cleaning time. 

A spark may be hot enough to explode gasolene vapor or 



-26— 


acetylene gas. Sparks may fire thin paper, rags, cotton, 
grease, tar, or lace curtains. More fires are started in rubbish 
heaps by sparks than by spontaneous combustion or careless¬ 
ness with matches or cigar stubs. 

In some states about 40 fires a year are started by sparks 
from factory and traction engines and about 20 fires from 
cupolas. 

DANGERS FROM LOCOMOTIVES. 

Sparks from locomotives fire a number of buildings a year 
in this state, and many of them are in cities, where there is 
great danger of the fire spreading. The hre losses that railway 
companies are forced to pay on account of sparks, are very large. 
The inventor who will make something lasting that will catch 
the sparks that fly from locomotives will certainly be made 
rich. 

SPARKS LIGHTING IN BIRD’S NESTS. 

Sparks light in birds’ nests in the eaves of houses and in 
openings made to let air into storehouses and mills. In Cleve¬ 
land sparks caught in a bird’s nest in the top of a church 
tower. Birds’ nests are made of very fine, dry stuff and they 
burn quickly. As English sparrows build their nests in nearly 
every opening near the tops of tall city buildings, it is best 
to cover all such openings with screens of woven wire. Not 
long ago a large mill and elevator was seen to take fire from 
a spark falling in a sparrow’s nest. It burned to the ground. 

The sparrows were brought from England and, when they 
found the winters were much colder here, they made their 
nests much thicker and warmer. When one of these nests 
taikes fire, the boards under it are sure to burn. In cities, every 
spring, all sparrows’ nests about buildings should be torn down. 
The house-sparrow—or English sparrow as it is commonly 
called—is of no known use and it drives away the song birds 
which g'ive us pleasure by their beautiful music. The song 
birds are useful to the farmer, because they live by eating the 
insects which destroy his grain and fruit. 

A STORY OF A BIRD’S NEST. 

“Once upon a time,” as the fairy stories say, “there lived 
a family of robins half way up in the branches of an old oak 
tree. Near them, in the eaves of a tall factory, dwelt Mr. and 
Mrs. Sparrow, whose great-great grandparents came from Eng¬ 
land. The little robins were just learning to stretch their 


— 27 — 


* 


wings, and fly a few yards, and they looked up at the Sparrow 
nest and said: ‘Oh, what a dear little home those rohins have 

way up there! When our wings are a little stronger, may we 
visit them, mother dear?” 

“My dear children/'* said wise Mrs. Robin, “they are not 
robins, and they are not even friends of ours. If you flew to 
their door they would peck at you and drive you away. They 
are great fighters, but when it comes to singing, they can never 
get above the kindergarten class. When you are singing 
carols, they will not be able to go even half way up the scale. 

“Before you broke through the beautiful blue shells, that 
lay so close to my heart, your father had all he could do to 
keep them away from our little home. While he was away 
getting me food, they would peck at me, and scold, and scold 
—I believe they wanted this nest for their own!” 

The little robins looked soberly at one another. They were 
learning that the big world is not all love and sunshine, and it 
made them sad. 

The days went by and all the little robins had learned to 
fly. One of them flew to the top of the oak tree and sang 
until it seemed as though his little throat would burst. In 
the midst of a very wonderful trill, he looked over at the Spar¬ 
row home. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Sparrow was there, but 
something very bright and red danced up and down on the 
rim of the nest. His father and mother had warned him against 
suchi dreadful things as cats, guns and 1 sling-shots, but this 
was something different. How large it was growing, and how 
it snapped and cracked! He flew down in great alarm and 
cried to his father and mother to come quickly and see! They 
called “Fire! Fire!” at the top of their sweet bird voices, and 
a man passing by on the sidewalk below, looked up and saw 
the flames. In a short time the firemen came and the building 
was saved, but Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow’s home was burned. 

The owner of the factory was very grateful to the man who 
turned in the alarm, but he said: “The robins saved your build¬ 
ing that time. I’d advise you to keep those sparrows out of 
your eaves. Their nest caught the sparks from Smith’s chim¬ 
ney.” 


—28- 


LESSON NO. ii. 

The Ash Heap and the Coal Pile; 

EITHER MAY TAKE FIRE. 

Many buildings ,are burned each year by hot ashes which 
have been emptied against boards. Ashes are often thrown 
into wooden boxes and against fences or sheds. The in¬ 
spectors of the Fire Marshal’s office find many wooden ash 
boxes in the halls of large houses in which a number of 
families live. Often hot ashes are put in closets. Ash piles in 
back yards often touch a wooden fence or the side of a build- 
in O' 

When the ashes are not hot enough to set fire to wood, 
they may be hot enough to char (or brown) it. When a hot 
coal strikes this charred surface, the charcoal on it will take 
fire. If the layer of charcoal gets any kind of fat or grease 
against it, it will take fire and burn the box or house of which 
the board is a part. 

ASHES TAKE FIRE SPONTANEOUSLY. 

Sometimes when the ashes are not even warm, a fire will 
start in them. Wood ashes contain many little pieces of char¬ 
coal which did not burn because not enough air was given to 
the fire. In a coal fire much of the coal dust does not burn. 
The greatest amount of dust is found in ashes from grate fires. 

The moisture (dampness) gathered from the cellar floor, or 
from rain, may cause the particles of charcoal or coal dust in 
the ash pile to take fire, if there is little movement of air. 
The most dangerous ash pile is made up of sweepings, rags, 
scraps of meat and odds and ends of wood. Ashes stored in 
the cellar should be kept dry and clean. In the house they 
should be kept only in metal cans having covers, and in the 
yard they should be piled where they do not touch any wood. 
They should not be mixed with any other rubbish. Hot ashes 
do not have to be red hot to start a fire in an ash pile. 

CINDER DUMPS MAY BURN. 

Large masses of cinder often take fire. It is not safe to use 
cinders for foundations of buildings, if they are mixed with 
any rubbish or if oils are permitted to drain through them. 
Spontaneous combustion in old cinder banks has made it neces¬ 
sary for people to move away the houses that were built upon 
them. If linseed oil is thrown upon wood ashes, spontaneous 


— 2 9 — 


combustion will occur at some hour of the second day after 
the oil is thrown upon them. 

WHEN WATER INCREASES A BLAZE. 

Burning grease, lint, cotton, silk goods and gunpowder 
give out a gas which spreads in the form of smoke, if it has 
not enough air to burn it. Throwing water upon this smok¬ 
ing mass makes steam, which carries the other gases in the 
burning stuff out to the air, where they can get enough oxygen 
to burn them. Then they explode. The great fires at Balti- ' 
more and at Knoxville both started with an explosion of smoke 
caused by throwing water on a smouldering fire. 

COAL MAY FIRE ITSELF. 

Sometimes coal in heaps sets itself afire. The larger the 
heap the more the danger. The most important cause of such 
coal fires is the drinking in of oxygen from the air. This makes 
a heat that may become so great that the coal will begin to 
burn in the center. Spontaneous combustion of coal is not 
common. In the last 200 cases of spontaneous combustion in 
one State but four of the fires were in coal. 

The coal pile should be as much as 20 feet away from the 
furnace. It should have near it an opening for carrying off 
heat. Coal should not be stored while wet. It should not be 
put in wooden bins nor around wooden posts. If it is close to 
the furnace, natural gas in it may be roasted out and explode. 
If it is put in while, wet, it cakes so that the air cannot move 
through it freely, and the heat from it is not carried away. 
If there is wood around the coal, the house will probably be 
afire before the burning of the coal inside the heap is noticed. 

CAUSES OF SPONTANEOUS IGNITION. 

The newspapers have told of some cases of this kind: 

“Several tons of coal were burned by spontaneous combus¬ 
tion in the yards of the Davis Sewing Machine Company.” 

“At the Bohemian Art Pottery at Zanesville the pile of 
slack had lain at the side of the pottery for so long that spon¬ 
taneous combustion resulted. The smouldering flames attract¬ 
ed no< attention at first but, when the fence around the.pottery 
caught fire, a passer-by noticed it and sent in an alarm." 

The infirmary in Ottawa County burned down from spon¬ 
taneous combustion of nut coal in the cellar. It started in the 


/ 


- 30 - 

center of the coal pile and traveled lip a wooden box containing 
a water pipe and lighted the building. 

Some coal will take fire when it is only a little hotter than 
water is when it begins to boil. 

HOW COAJL SPOIHS. 

Many coals lose so much of their heat giving quality while 
in the cellar or shed that it makes no saving to buy the win- 
er’s coal early in the autumn when it is cheaper. In five months 
• some coals lose one-twentieth to one-tenth of their heating 
power. After five months there is no loss. Coal keeps as well 
out of doors as in a shed or cellar. If it is kept under water 
it will be as good to use in making a fire as w T hen it came 
from the coal mine. 


—3i 


LESSON NO. 12. 

Dangers from Leaking Gas; 

HOW IT MAY BE EXPLODED. 

Our noses were given us for our use and pleasure. One 
great use is to warn us of danger; they tell us when gas is leak¬ 
ing. There are two things to do as soon as you smell the gas: 
I. Open the doors and windows. 2. Close all the gas keys. 

Never look for the leak with a lighted match or a lamp. 
The flame from the match or lamp will light the gas that has 
been leaking and there will be an explosion. Many lives are 
lost because people are foolish enough to look for a leak with 
a' light. Hunt for the leak with your nose and fingers. You 
can feel the gas coming through the leak-hole when your finger 
is over it. 

If there is gas burning in a room next the one in which 
you smell the gas, do not open the door into that room. 

A plumber should be called to shut off the gas outside the 
house and mend the leak. While you wait for the plumber 
to come, you can plug a small hole with a splinter of. soft 
wood. A crack may be stopped by wrapping the pipe tightly 
with a strip of cloth, that has been smeared with soap. These 
things will help until you can have the pipe mended. Leaks 
usually come where two ends of pipe are joined, or at an open¬ 
ing in the seam of the pipe. 

Gas is always trying to get out of the pipes; if it finds a 
place to get out it is likely to choke people to death while they 
sleep. When it reaches a blaze it takes fire and burns the 
bodies of those it has choked. 

A DANGEROUS ENEMY. 

If gas is always trying to get out, you can see that noth¬ 
ing but strong, iron pipes will hold it. We often see rubber 
pipes or tubes used but these are not strong enough to hold the 
gas. They are not safe because they may break off at the end. 
If they break while the fire is burning the fire will go out but, 
if the stove-burner is very hot the gas that leaks out will be 
lighted. Rubber tubes may be pulled off in moving the stoves, 
or be knocked off in many ways. 

Not long ago a mother left her little girl alone in a room 
for a few minutes. When she came back she found the poor 
little one lying on the floor smothered by gas from one of these 


— 32 — 




rubber tubes. The child had been playing with it and pulled 
it off. She never awakened. 

COMMON ACCIDENTS. 

Gas keys are so easily turned that many dreadful things 
will happen if we are not very careful. A lady was passing by 
a gas key in a room where there was no fire or light. Her 
skirt caught on the key and the gas began to escape but the 
lady did not know it. It rushed into the next room, where there 
was a fire, and then there was a great explosion. A wall of 
the house was blown out. 

Children in their play hit the gas keys and open them; men 
kick them open, and women drag their dishcloths over them 
and hit them with pans and kettles when they are cooking. 
Sometimes the broom strikes them when they are sweeping. 

In new houses the gas pipes are under the floor and there 
is a keyhole. The danger is not so great in such houses, if 
they do not leave the key in the key-hole. 

A WORSE DANGER. 

Our noses can not tell us when gas is leaking into the cellar 
from the main pipes in the street. It has to pass through the 
earth to get into the cellar and the earth takes away its smell. 
This makes it very dangerous. As it is lighter than the air, it 
rises to the ceiling of the cellar. One-sixth of all the gas put 
into the main pipes leaks out. The gas company would have 
to spend more money to mend the leaks than all the gas they 
lose is worth. 


— 33 - 


LESSON NO. 13. 

Gas Lights. 

SMOTHERING BY GAS. 

Three kinds of gases are used for light; coal gas, water gas 
and natural gas. Where coal is cheap coal gas is used; where 
charcoal is cheaper, water gas is used. Natural gas is used 
for light in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana and Illinois. As it 
costs only one-fourth as much as the other kinds of gas, it is 
used for warming and cooking as well as lighting. 

COAL GAS. 

When coal is roasted in an oven we get coke, tar, ammonia 
liquor and lighting gases from it. The gases are passed from the 
oven through holes in the bottom of a large iron pipe, which 
lies on the ground. This pipe is half filled with water and most 
of the tar and ammonia settle in the water. The gases are 
then passed through a number of tall iron pipes to cool them. 
Then they go up through a tower filled with coke. Water 
trickles down through the coke. This is called the “scrub¬ 
ber,” for it is here that the gas is cleaned or purified; the am¬ 
monia and all the other gases that can be dissolved in water 
are taken out of it. At last the gas is ready for use and it goes 
into the large gas-holder which presses it into tlie street pipes. 

Do you know that the aniline dyes, used in coloring your 
Easter eggs, are made from the tar that comes from the gas 
factory? 

WATER GAS. 

Water gas is made by forcing steam through charcoal, which 
is kept white hot. When it comes through pipes into our 
homes nearly half of it is carbon monoxid. This makes it the 
most dangerous of the gases used for lighting. It is cheaper 
than coal gas and is sometimes mixed with it. It should never 
be used in a house. Thousands of people are smothered to 
death each year by the carbon monoxid in the water gas which 
they use. Carbon monoxid is another name for the “fire damp” 
which smothers the poor miners after an explosion in the coal 
mine. 

DANGEROUS GAS JETS. 

Gas jets that have a hinge in them are dangerous anywhere 
in a house unless they have glass globes or wire cages around 
the light. About 75 houses are burned each year in one state 


I 


— 34 — 

/ 

alone by these swinging gas jets. Careless people turn them 
against the window curtains, furniture or the wall. The double- 
jointed gas jets are more dangerous than those with one joint. 
A gas jet will first char the wood which is too close to 1 it and 
then light the charred wood (charcoal). 

No gas jet should be less than two and a half feet from 
the ceiling. 

DON’T BLOW OUT THE GAS. 

The match should be in your hand ready to light it as soon 
as the gas is turned on. Mrs. Baker, of Shelby, turned on the 
gas and waited too long before using a match. An explosion 
set fire to her clothing and she was burned to death. 

When a gas jet is left open without being lighted the gas 
fills the room and smothers those who are in it, if the doors and 
windows are not open. This is because the gas which is 
breathed fills the lungs and keeps them from carrying to the 
blood the oxygen which they can always get from pure air. 

Many persons blow out the gas light because they do not 
know how to turn it off. Of course the gas escapes and puts 
them to sleep—such a long sleep that they never wake. 

Flame changes the gas to carbonic acid and water. If the 
stove is an open one, the water comes out into the room as 
steam. In cold weather it freezes on the window panes. It 
swells the wood in the furniture so that the glue cracks in all 
its joints. This steam in the air makes one feel warmer than 
he would if the air were dry. For this reason a room heated 
by an open natural gas stove need not be kept so hot as a 
room heated by a closed wood or coal stove. 

THE NATURAL GAS STOVE. 

Many a natural gas stove is dangerous because it has no 
pipe to carry the fumes of the burning gas to the chimney. 
The smoke from it cannot be seen, because there is no soot in 
it; but it contains carbonic acid, which is the poison always 
found in smoke. If too much gas is let into a stove, or if it 
gets red hot, carbon monoxid is formed. If there is even a very 
small amount of this gas in the air von breathe, you will die. 
It fills all the red cells of the blood so that they cannot carry 
oxygen through the body. Death comes in a few minutes. The 
fumes from burning charcoal kill in the same way. 

More lives are lost by cooking stoves than by heating stoves. 
Sometimes two burners are turned open and only one is light- 


— 35 — 


ed; sometimes a burner is blown out by the wind. Children 
play with the knobs and open the burners. In this way the gas 
gets into the oven and very soon there is an explosion. 

The fumes from natural gas stoves crumble the mortar that 
is between the bricks in chimneys. The crumbs of mortar fall 
down and choke the small pipes from the gas stoves. Then 
the fumes may smother persons sleeping in the rooms where 
such stoves are used. 

RESUSCITATION. 

If there is a strong smell of gas in a room, and someone is 
sleeping there so soundly that you cannot awaken him, you 
should throw open the doors and windows and call for help. 
As soon as you smell the gas, open the windows. While wait¬ 
ing for the doctor, you should try to get fresh air into the 
sleeper’s lungs. 

To do this, put him on the floor. Hold his tongue out of his 
mouth with your fingers, first wrapping a handkerchief around 
them to prevent slipping. This keeps the throat open and 
lets the fresh air into the lungs. Have someone kneel above 
his head and catch his arms above the wrists, then pull them 
along the floor away from his body and up along side of his 
head. After a moment bring his arms together, and move them 
down until the elbows almost meet over his stomach. Press 
them down on his stomach ; this squeezes the gas or air out 
of his lungs. This should be done seventeen times each minute. 
That is as fast as a healthy person breathes. 

By using these movements we can save the lives of many 
persons who have been poisoned by gas, drowned, or stunned 
by lightning or the electricity that comes from light and trolley 
wires. 

NOTE.—A teacher, by having two boys demonstrate this method upon 
another can impress a lesson that may save a number of lives. 


N 


— 36 - 

LESSON NO 14. 

The District Schoolhouse; 

FAULTS IN ITS CONSTRUCTION. 

The knowledge we obtain in our schools has made this the 
best and greatest country in the world. 

The district schoolhouse we most often see is one 24 feet 
wide, 36 feet long, and 14 feet high to the eaves. More than 
half of the schoolhouses that burn take fire from chimneys 
that are not built right; the other half of them burn from care¬ 
less feeding of the stove or because they are set afire. A brick 
schoolhouse is almost as likely to be burned down as one of 
wood, if it has a poorly made chimney. Usually the door and 
the teacher’s desk are at one end of the building and the 
other end is a solid wall. Near the center of the room is a 
“cannon,” or “burnside” stove for burning coal. The stove¬ 
pipe runs straight up into a brick chimney. 

THE CHIMNEY. 

The bottom of the chimney is a board which sets on two 
joists. A layer of mortar is the only thing that protects this 
wooden bottom from the sparks and hot coals which are drawn 
up through the stove pipe. This mortar is thrown upon the 
board before the bricks are put in place. Sometimes the mor¬ 
tar cracks so that the sparks drop through it to the wood and, 
after a while, set it afire. Iron straps or a stone bottom to such 
a chimney makes it safer, but it is hard to fit a pipe into a 
hole in a stone tight enough to keep sparks from dropping 
through to the room below. A chimney built fn this way is 
never safe. The weight of the brick twists the two joists which 
hold it up and the settling of the chimney makes cracks in it. 
Sparks can pass out into the attic through these cracks. 

THE ATTIC. 

Schoolhouse attics rarely have openings in the ends to let 
in cool air and the rough wood in the attic is very dry and hot. 
So, when a spark strays into the attic it is almost sure to start 
a fire. 

This danger is made greater when there is no stairway or 
ladder or hole through which one can get into the attic to> throw 
water on a fire. Even in school houses in which there is an easv 
way to get into the attic, a fire is likely to get such a start 
that there is not enough water at hand to put it out. In most 


— 37 - 


district schools all the water one can get quickly is that in 
the drinking water bucket, and it is not half full if the children 
play hard at recess. 

A fire in a school house nearly always starts where it can¬ 
not be quickly reached with plenty of water. If a schoolhouse 
gets afire it is almost sure to burn to the ground. In every 
schoolhouse there should be a ladder long enough to reach to 
the roof. There should be a trap door in the ceiling through 
which it could be pushed. 

The schoolhouse chimney, for several reasons, should be 
built in the back end of the building. At the end of the build¬ 
ing it can rest on the ground, so that it will not twist and crack 
open and 1 let sparks into the attic. The stove-pipe can then 
be run from above the stove at a safe distance from the ceiling, 
to the chimney. 

THE STOVE PIPE. 

A pipe so placed gives off one-fifth as much heat as the 
stove, and it is in the back part of the room, where heat is 
most needed. Then the stove does not need to be kept so hot, 
and the children near it will not have to keep the heat from 
their faces by holding up their books. 

When the stovepipe is run to the back of the room, before 
it enters the chimney, the sparks have time to cool before 
they reach the roof. Many of them will “bump their heads” in 
turning from the pipe into the chimney, and drop to the bot¬ 
tom of the chimney where they can do no harm. In a straight- 
up pipe and chimney the sparks go out upon the shingles so 
quickly that they drop while still hot. 

THE STOVE. 

School houses have burned becaue fires have been kindled 
in them, and then left unwatched, while the buildng was get¬ 
ting warmed. Kindling, or the coal-box, too near the stove 
caused the fire; sometimes the neglected stove grew hot enough 
to fire the floor underneath it. 

In covering a fire to keep it over night the ashes should 
be shaken down so that the coal which is put in will not come 
up to the door. The coal will become heated and swell one- 
third its bulk during the night, and may get high enough to 
fall out on the floor through the open door. 

A piece of zinc or bricks laid in sand should be put under 
the stove and extended two feet beyond it all around. 


- 3 8 - 

A schoolhouse stove should be big enough to warm it with¬ 
out being made red hot. When the side of the stove is red 
hot carbon monoxid, a very poisonous gas produced in burning 
coal comes out through it. When this gas is breathed into 
the lungs part of the red blood cells crumple up. This causes 
headache and dullness of the brain in winter, and the children 
suffering from it grow pale. This is the most important fact 
in this lesson. Remember the deadly gas. 

Every schoolhouse should have a slate or metal roof be¬ 
cause it lessens the danger from sparks. A shingle roof is 
always the first thing’in a schoolhouse to need mending. 

Two hundred and nine district schoolhouses have been 
burned down in one state alone in six years. Of these one 
hunred and nine were brick. 




—39 


LESSON NO 15. 

The Danger from Christmas Trees 

IN HOMES AND CHURCHES. 

When the Christmas tree is trimmed and lighted it is a big 
torch such as a giant might carry. The tree is always an ever¬ 
green whose twigs are full of rosin. It is trimmed with fes¬ 
toons of tissue paper and wreaths of dry leaves which will 
burn with a flash. Many of the presents are made of celluloid 
which explodes when heated and burns fiercely. Other pres¬ 
ents are covered with lace or embroidery, which may be lighted 
by a spark. The paper Christmas bells, the netting o-f which 
the candy bags are made, and the dry, painted wood in the 
toys burn easily. . 

In the midst of these things which burn so easily, a num¬ 
ber of candles are fastened (sometimes not very firmly) to 
light branches of the evergreen which move to and fro in every 
current of air. What a temptation it must be to the fiend, fire. 

While the candles are lighted, no one should be permitted 
to change, or touch, anything on the tree. Doors should be 
kept closed because of the danger from drafts of air swaying 
the branches, or blowing lace curtains against the tree. Never 
leave the tree alone while it is lighted ; that would be a very 
dangerous thing to do. 

BLOW OUT THE CANDLES. 

After you have admired the sparkling tree and it is time 
to take off the presents the candles should be blown out. If 
they remain lighted you are in danger of brushing something 
against them while you are taking off the gifts. You will be 
so interested in the gifts by that time, that you will hot care 

very much if the lights are out. 

Very often cotton is placed under the tree to< look like snow. 

This is a foolish thing to do, because candles may fall on the 
cotton, or sparks from matches may set it afire. Cotton, like 
all of the vegetable fibres, is made up of hollow tubes which 
have air in them. This makes the tubes of cotton burn inside 
as well as out. 

It cost very little now to trim a tree beautifully, with bright 
balls and other things that do not burn easily. The Japanese 
tissue paper now made in Massachusetts is very beautiful for 
decorations. It will not take fire even from a candle flame 
but will turn to ashes without blazing. 


—4o—• 


The floor under the tree may he protected by a sheet of 
zinc or iron. A Christmas tree can be made* less dangerous 
and more beautiful if the presents are placed under it, instead 
of on it. 

TREES FROM MAINE TO CALIFORNIA. 

In the Northern states one family in fourteen has a Christ¬ 
mas tree. This requires a large number of trees. Nearly all 
of them are spruce from the wild parts of Maine, Northern 
New York or Canada. When shipped to large eastern cities 
they have their limbs tied up so that 600 of them can be packed 
in a car. 

TREES IN CHURCES. 

More people have been burned by fires starting in Sunday 
school Christmas trees than by fires starting in home trees. 
This is because there are usually a number of managers work¬ 
ing around the Sunda} 7, school tree. Many kind gentlemen, 
dressed like Santa in cotton batting, have been burned to 
death by the cotton getting afire while they were giving the 
gift and goodies to the children. Many children have been 
killed by fire or trampled to death in the rush to get away 
from a blazing Christmas tree. 

In all cases the cotton used in the trimmings of Santa Claus 
should first be dipped in alum water to make it hard to light 
or mineral wool should take its place. 

CHRISTMAS TREE DON’TS. 

Several years ago on Christmas twelve Ohio homes were 
burned by wax candles setting fire to Christmas trees. You 
can see how necessary it is for people to take the advice in the 
“don’ts” which follow: 

Don’t let children touch the tree. 

Don’t use festoons of the ordinary tissue paper, or cotton 
batting on a tree. 

Don’t use any ornaments made of celluloid. 

Don’t light a single candle until every thing is ready for 
the children to come in. 

Don’t permit a draft of air to sway the branches of a tree 
while the candles are lighted. 

Don’t let any one change the position of anything on the 
tree after the candles are lighted; it is so easy to sway a candle 
against something which will take fire. 

Don’t leave a lighted tree unwatched. 


—4i— 


Don’t put cotton beneath the tree to make the carpet look 
like snow-covered ground. 

Don’t fail to have a bucket of water near the tree. 

Don’t remove a thing from the tree until the candles on it 

are blown out. 

Don’t let the tree stand long after Christmas. When dry, 
it is doubly dangerous. 

Christmas should be a time of joy and good cheer but 
many hearts are saddened on this sacred day by the burning 
of homes and of loved ones through carelessness. 



- 42 - 


LESSON NO. 16. 

Fire Danger from Grease and Oil. 

A FIRE MAY START ITSELF. 

When a fire starts itself we cal it “spontaneous combus¬ 
tion.” Most fires- are started by something we can see, like 
matches, torches, burning pieces of wood or paper. We can¬ 
not see what starts “spontaneous combustion,” but we know 
a number of fires are caused in our state every year by fires 
that start themselves. 

A LITTLE OF THE CHEMISTRY OF COMBUSTION. 

When anything burns, the carbon in it has to join the oxy¬ 
gen in the air. If the carbon and oxygen unite slowly, as 
they do in the rotting of wood, the rusting of iron or the decay¬ 
ing of a potato, the heat is very little and is not felt. If the 
carbon and oxygen unite fast enough to make a heat that will 
roast out the gases and burn them, it makes a flame. Wood 
and coal are heated until they are in flames. If the carbon 
and oxygen rush together in a great hurry to unite there is 
an explosion. 

GREASY RAGS. 

Greasy rags caused a great many fires from spontaneous 
combustion which are reported to the state fire marshal. A 
fat, when warmed, is an oil; when it is smeared or spread on 
anything it. is grease. Spontaneous combustion is oftener 
caused by vegetable oils (linseed, cottonseed, nut, castor bean 
and olive) than by animals fats such as tallow, butter and 
lard, unless the animal fats spoil or become “rancid.” When 
any of these oils or fats are spread over a large surface of stuff 
that is easily burned, they cause spontaneous combustion. 
They take the oxygen from the air so fast that a great deal 
of heat is made, and if the fat is spread on a piece of rag, 
or thin cotton cloth, the cloth will first char (turn brown) 
and then take fire. A moo used in oiling: a floor in the Home 
for Working Girls in Columbus took fire in a few hours after 
being put in a closet under the stair. If the closet had not 
been closed, so that the air could not move through it, the heat 
would have passed off and the mop would not have taken fire. 

Linseed oil causes the greatest number of fires that burr 
buildings. Cotton rags, sawdust or scraps of silk wet with 
linseed oil, cottonseed oil or olive oil may start a fire. This 
oil is likely to get into any pile of rubbish. 


43 


CLOSET FIRES. 

Greasy rags and overalls and cloths used in oiling floors 
start fires if they are shut up in closets. Greasy clothing hang¬ 
ing in closets have caused several of the fires in Montana this 
year. Many factories burn because fires are started by the 
spontaneous combustion of dryers, turpentine and linseed oil 
in their paint shops. 

Rags smeared with lard or butter are often carelessly 
thrown into a barrel with other trash, and they are likely to 
take fire. The storehouses where rags are sorted and packed 
are very likely to be destroyed by spontaneous combustion. 

Things may get so hot that they will burn even when there 
is no grease on' them/ and when they are not near a stove or 
flame. New mown hay often becomes so hot that it burns 
the barn where it is kept. A few barns have been burned 
by grain and meal getting hot. 

Icehouses sometimes burn from the heating of the sawdnst 
in which the ice is packed, or the sawdust used to fill the Avails 
of the icehouse. Perhaps the grease from the mill machinery 
gets into the sawdust and cause some of these fires. It may 
seem strange, but some things are most likely to burn them¬ 
selves Avhen they are soaked Avith water. 



■ 44 - 


LESSON NO. 17. 

Gasolene Used in Washing. 

BURNS MANY WOMEN AND CHILDREN. 

Every week there are at least twenty persons burned to 

l 

death by the careless use of gasolene, and three times as many 
are dangerously burned. Gasolene burns are so deep that 
they leave ugly scars. 

Every day some house is set afire by the careless use of 
gasolene. Usually the fire departments arrives in time to pre¬ 
vent the house burning down but the loss from such fires is 
more than $3,800,000 in a year. Gasolene is the most danger¬ 
ous part of petroleum. Naptha is only a little less dangerous 
and is usually called gasolene. 

Gasolene gives off a vapor all the time. When eleven- 
twelfths of a room is filled with air and one-twelfth of it is 
filled with gasolene vapor there is greater danger than if the 
room were filled with gunpowder. Air with that much gaso¬ 
lene vapor is heavier than air and it falls to the floor and is 
gunpowder. Gunpowder will stay where we place it and gaso¬ 
lene vapor is heavier than air and it falls to the floor and is 
moved about by drafts of air. Gasolene vapor is a gas and 
cannot be seen. 

IT WRECKS HOUSES. 

If a panful of gasolene is left in a closed room for a few 
hours, the house is blown to pieces as soon as a match is 
struck in the room. The vapor on the floor spreads until it 
gets under a gas jet, or lamp, or stove, and then it is drawn 
up by the current of air which is made by the heat of the 
blaze. An explosion follows. Vapor without air mixed with it 
cannot explode. In a laundry a man poured a barrel of gaso¬ 
lene through a pipe into an underground tank. He did not 
first open the pipe that would let the air out from the tank. 
All the air in the tank has to bubble up through the pipe 
down which the gasolene was poured. Of course this air was 
full of gasolene vapor. It spread through two rooms and into 
the door of the engine room where it reached the fire under 
the boiler. The explosion knocked down two walls of the 
brick building, burned a man to death and badly burned a 
woman. 


CLEANING GLOVES AND RIBBONS. 

When people wish to clean the grease from leather, wool 
and silk they often use gasolene which melts the grease and car¬ 
ries it away. 

Gasolene should never be used for cleaning (or anything 
else) in a room where there is a candle, lamp or fire. A light¬ 
ed cigar or pipe carried into a room in which gasolene is being 
used will explode the air in it. The vapor will hunt for fire. 
It is not safe to use it for cleaning, even on a porch. A beau¬ 
tiful girl of fifteen cleaned her long kid gloves and had them on 
her hands drying. Her brother struck a match to light a cigar 
as he came out on the porch. An explosion followed and one 
of the poor girls arms was so deeply burned that she never 
can straighten it. Her face will always be scarred by the ter¬ 
rible burns she received. The skin and flesh came from her 
arms when the gloves were taken off but the gloves were not 
hurt. 

A man who had a pipe in his mouth while pouring gaso¬ 
lene from one can to another was badly burned by an explo¬ 
sion. A spark from a piece of iron which a blacksmith struck 
fell into a can of gasolene and an explosion followed. The 
shop was burned. 

Gasolene should only be used for cleaning in out-of-door 
places, away from building and smokers. The dirty gasolene 
should be thrown on loose ground which will drink it up. 
Several explosions have come from throwing the dirty gasolene 
down the hole in the sink. A large number of explosions have 
come from pouring it into the slop bucket where it floats, giv¬ 
ing off vapor. 

Explosions are sure to follow when gasolene is put in the 
water in the wash boiler. 

Silk in dreses, ribbons or gloves may make a spark if rub¬ 
bed hard; this spark will fire gasolene. A lady of Elyria clean¬ 
ed with gasolene a pair of silk gloves while they were on her 
hands. A spark of elctricitv came from her rubbing and the 
gasolene vapor exploded. 

Benzine soap should be used instead of gasolene for clean¬ 
ing grease spots. 


—46— 


LESSON NO. 18. 

Gasolene Stoves. 

SHORTEN WORK AND MAY SHORTEN LIFE. 

A gasolene stove makes easy work for the cook, but noth¬ 
ing, in common use, is so dangerous to have in your home. 

In the United States every year nearly 3,000 homes are 
burned, more than 3,800 persons are badly scarred and at least 
500 are roasted to death because of the careless use of gaso¬ 
lene in stoves. A new stove is safe, if care is used in filling it 
and in turning the valves. The valves shut off the supply of 
gasolene to the burners. The can above the stove is called the 
“tank.” The opening through which the tank is filled must be 
kept tightly closed at all times. 

IMPORTANT DON’TS. 

Don’t fill the tank which stands above the stove while a 
burner is lighted. The vapor of the gasolene will reach the 
blaze and a flash will follow. The room will soon be filled 
with flames for the one filling the tank will be frightened by 
the flash and will spill more gasolene. 

Don’t fill the tank quite full. When gasolene is warm it 
swells enough to open a seam in the tank. 

Don’t fail to turn off the gasolene from the burners be¬ 
fore filling the tank. Gasolene leaking through the burners 
makes a vapor which will explode when you strike a match 
to light the stove. 

Don’t allow too much fluid to flow into the burner. Don’t: 
fail to close it tightly when you no longer need the fire. 

Don’t keep the gasolene can in the kitchen. It is not safe 
to keep it anywhere in the house, but the kitchen is the worst 
place for it. 

Don’t pour gasolene into anjffhing in a room where there is 
a fire or light. You cannot see the vapor of gasolene, but it 
will be there and it will be drawn to any fire, lamp, candle or 
gas jet that is near. 

Don't fail to watch closely for leaks in the tank or burner. 
Gasolene is thinner than water and can leak through a smaller 
hole than water can. It does not make a wet spot—as water 
does—when it leaks through a small hole. It forms vapor 
as fast as it comes through the hole. 


47 — 


GREAT DANGER IN FIDLING. 

Don’t spill gasolene, for it is more dangerous than powder. 
Three-fourths of the stove explosions happen while the tank is 
being filled. 

A farmer near South Lebanon filled the tank of a gaso- 
len stove by the light of a lantern. The vapor exploded and 
set fire to his clothing. Neighbors wrapped him in wet blank¬ 
ets to put out the flames and then carried him, unconscious, 
into the house. He died two hours later. 

Don’t keep gasolene in a jug or can that holds more than 
two gallons. You can not pour it from larger jugs or cans 
without spilling it. 

Don’t leave a gasolene can open. Vapor will be drawn out 

from it. 

Gasolene vapor takes up 130 times as much room as the 
gasolene from which it comes. This vapor makes a large 
amount of air an explosive gas which will take fire from a 
blaze or spark and explode dangerously. 

DIFFERENT KINDS OF STOVES. 

It is dangerous to use the kind of a stove that can be 
filled while the burners are alight. It is not safe to fill a tank 
over a stove that has just been used. If the gasolene splashes 
on a hot burner, a flash will follow. A lady was frightened 
by such a flash and she set the two gallon can on the hot stove 
and ran screaming for help. The house took fire. 

The tank of every gasolene stove should be placed on the 
outside of the wall of the building; there the heat from the 
stove cannot burst it and then the vapor from a leak would 
be safely carried away. 

The stove must be fastened to the floor, away from any¬ 
thing that might burn. The small stove must not be set on a 
box, a shelf, or a barrel-head. All gasolene stoves should be 
made of metal on the bottom and three sides, so things easily 
burned cannot get into them. The main burner grates should 
be at least two feet above the floor. 

If you smell leaking gasolene, open the doors and windows. 
Look for the leak with your nose and fingers. If you strike a 
match you may be blown up. 


- 48 - 

LESSON NO. ig. 

Gasolene for Lights and Other Uses; 

HOW TO STOP IT BURNING. 

The most dangerous way of lighting a house is by the use 
of gasolene lamps. 

Even well-made gasolene lamps are not safe because gaso¬ 
lene is always a dangerous thing to have in the house. A good 
lamp may be upset or broken, spilling the gasolene. Some 
one may try to fill it while it is burning or the wick-tube may 
not be screwed down. The can may be upset or left uncork¬ 
ed or the gasolene may be used to start a fire. A gasolene lamp 
must not be carried about. Gasolene, at all times, gives off a 
vapor which mixes with the air and makes an explosive. 

If the gasolene in the tank of a lamp or stove takes fire, 
carry it out of doors if possible. Walk backward carefully as 
you carry it so that the flame will be drawn away from you. 

The gasolene lamp which is hung on posts in markets is 
not so dangerous as the kind used in houses. Being out of 
doors so much air moves past it that there is not vapor enough 
to make all the air explosive. But there are some lamps 
for out-door use which have a rubber bulb or air pump which 
forces the gasolene to come out faster than it does in the com¬ 
mon out-door lamp. These lamps with rubber bulbs are twen¬ 
ty times more dangerous, because they will spray gasolene 
into the air through a leak or a burner that is left open. 

CARBURETERS. 

Many houses and stores are now well lighted by gasolene 
vapor made in machines outside of the house and burned in a 
mantel like natural gas. 

While other gases rise and are carried away the vapor of 
gasolene sinks to the floor and waits for a spark or light to ex¬ 
plode it. It is the most dangerous gas you can use in a house. 

Some small machines for making gas from gasolene are put 
inside the house and the gasolene must be brought in, too. 
Such machines are far more dangerous than those placed out¬ 
side the houses. If you try to fill one of these machines at 
night you will be blown up by the vapor reaching the light 
which you are using. 

AUTOMOBIUES AND GARAGES. 

Explosions of gasolene destroy many automobiles and “gar¬ 
ages” as we call the barns in which they are kept. Many more 


— 49 — 


automobiles are driven by gasolene than by electricity. A 
small leak from the tank under the automobile mav let gaso¬ 
lene or its vapor come out. r l his vapor may be exploded by 

a match being scratched or stepped upon; by a cigar or cigar¬ 
ette stub ; by a lantern light. Gasolene vapor may be ignited by 
filling the tank while the lamps of the machine are lighted. 
A spark from an electric wire or from striking iron with a 
hammer will cause a gasolene explosion. 

GASOLENE ENGINES AND TORCHES. 

Gasolene is the cheapest fuel for running small eng'ines, 
which many farmers now use for grinding “feed,” shelling 
corn, pumping water and making butter. Plows, reapers, sew¬ 
ing machines and grind-stones can be driven by these engines. 
The only fire danger from them is from having the gasolene 
about. 

The torches used bv painters, plumbers and tinners for heat¬ 
ing metals are very dangerous. Workmen using them burn 
over 800 buildings in the United States every year. Sometimes 
these lamps explode and kill the workmen. 

Fifteen kinds of liquid stove-polish and several kinds of 
furniture polish, mixed with gasolene, are now sold. They 
are verv dangerous and mav be known bv their odor. 

USING THE WRONG CAN. 

Many sad accidents come from mistaking gasolene for kero¬ 
sene or water. Sometimes the store keeper fills the kerosene 
can from the gasolene tank. 

A mother brought gasolene from the grocery in a tin buck¬ 
et. Her daughter thought it was a pail of water and filled 
the coffee pot with it. An explosion followed and the girl was 
burned to death. 

Some peddlers go from house to house trying to sell a 
“safety” or “magic powder.” They say this powder will make a 
barrel of gasolene as safe as a barrel of vinegar. They are 
frauds. You cannot add anything to gasolene which will make 
it safe. Anything which will make it safe, will also make it 
useless. 

PUTTING OUT GASOLENE FIRES. 

A small gasolene fire can be put out by smothering it with 
wet racrs, woolen cloth, sand or ashes. Flour will smother it 
at once and the flour-barrel is usually near by. If a large 
amount of gasolene is burning, throw a great deal of water 
upon it to shut off the air from it. A little water only spreads 
the flame for gasolene floats on water. 

If burning gasolene is boiling or flowing from a can or tank 
and it cannot be carried outside it should be cooled with plenty 
of water and allowed to burn itself out. 


- 50 - 


LESSON NO. 20. 

Fires from Killing Insects 

INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL AND PLAYING CHILDREN. 

Many fires are started by house-keepers who use gasolene 
to get rid of bugs. These bugs live and raise families in the 
cracks in bedsteads, in floors, behind baseboards and under 
wall paper. 

Usually the fires come from splashing the gasolene about 
and then after it has given off its vapor, striking a match to 
light some dark crack. Sometimes the gasolene is used at night 
with a lamp to give light. When the vapor of the gasolene 
reaches the match flame or the lamp flame there is an explosion 
which fires the house. 

To get rid of any insect pest we must know its habits. 

THE STORY OF THE BUG. 

The bed bug is one of. a family of twelve bugs; its eleven 
brothers and sisters live in the nests of birds, especially the 
nests of swallows. Perhaps you have heard the funny rhyme 
which tells us that ‘‘The bed bug has no wings at all;” but 
this was not always true. When it “worked for a living” it 
had wings but when we do not use our gifts they are taken 
away. The bed bug stopped flying and began to live on the 
blood of man; then it lost its wings and became flat enough 
to crawl into very small cracks. It can live for months with¬ 
out food. In reaching full growth it has five shells—one after 
another. It needs only one meal for each new shell and it 
can get that meal if the person whose blood it drinks is at 
home one night in each of eight weeks. 

Each mother bed bug lays several bunches of 12 to 50 eggs. 
You can almost see through the new bugs until they get brown 
from drinking the blood of people. The odor of bed bugs is 
unpleasant to birds and they will not eat them. The bed bugs 
are safe in bird’s nests for this reason. 

Explosions of gasolene which was being used to kill bed 
bugs fired many houses every summer. In one state five per¬ 
sons were badly burned and four were burned to death; two 
of them were children who were helping their mother. 

INDUSTRIAL ALCOHOL. 

Every man who makes alcohol from corn, wheat, or pota¬ 
toes must pay the government tax of two dollars a gallon on it, 


5i— 


if it is to be used in making whisky. If he asks a government 
officer to put wood alcohol in it so it can’t be used in making 
anything to drink, he doesn’t have to pay the two dollars a 
gallon. When he does not have the tax to pay he can afford 
to sell this “industrial” alcohol at twenty-five cents a gallon. 

When alcohol is made at that low price it will take the place 
of gasolene for many uses. Then the loss of homes and of 
lives from gasolene explosions will be very much less. Any 
one who drinks industrial alcohol dies or is made blind by 
the wood alcohol in it. 

Alcohol gives off a vapor, but it rises and is carried away 
by the air. The vapor of gasolene waits for a blaze to explode 
it. Burning alcohol is put out if water is thrown on it. Burn¬ 
ing gasolene is spread by throwing water on it. 

PLAYING WITH FIRE. 

In the autumn the dead leaves should be hauled away. If 
they are burned in the city streets, sparks from them start dan¬ 
gerous fires. Bonfires of leaves injure the pavements, frighten 
horses and sometimes set fire to the clothing of children. 

In a Lorain newspaper we read of a little girl who was 
playing with a group of friends about a bonfire. Her clothes 
caught fire and she was covered by a mass of flames. Her 
mother heard her scream and ran to her aid; she put out the 
flames but not until her child’s bodv was terriblv burned from 

J ^ 

head to foot. The little girl died that evening at the hospital 
after great suffering. 

If girls play near open grates their skirts or aprons ?:re 
likely to be drawn to the fire and set ablaze. While playing 
“little old woman” a girl of six stood upon a chair to reach a 
penny on the mantel. The long apron she wore was drawn into 
the fire. Before she could get down from the chair her clothes 
were flaming. A lady hearing her screams came quickly and 
wrapped a rug around her. But it was too late; the burns were 
so deep that she soon died. 

Playing with gunpowder or kerosene is very dangerous. 
Children who play with fire nearly always burn either theii 
homes or themselves. 


— 52 - 


LESSON NO. 21. 

Acetylene, 

THE GAS FROM CALCIUM CARBIDE. 

The flame from acetylene makes a perfect light, brilliant and 
colorless like that of the sun. Few houses are lighted with it 
because the first machines used for making it were so poor that 
many of them exploded, killing people. At that time the acety¬ 
lene was squeezed into tubes, so 400 feet of gas was in one 
foot of space. These tubes which were five feet long and five 
inches across were sent to houses for use. They were found 
to be more dangerous than dynamite bombs because they ex¬ 
ploded if struck hard. 

Now there are many machines which are safe enough if 
they are given good care and kept outside the house. 

Air containing one-thirtieth as much acetylene explodes 
with much greater force than gun powder. It takes more 
than twice as much of any other gas to make air an explo¬ 
sive. 

Calcium carbide is seven-twelfths quick lime and five- 
twelfths coke, ground, mixed and baked together in an electric 
arc furnace at a heat of 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The great¬ 
est heat ever known in solid fuel furnaces is 3,000 degrees. 
After cooling it is crushed into small lumps and packed in metal 
cans holding 100 pounds or in one pound packages for bicycles. 
Carbide cannot burn but will become red hot and fire wood 
near it if it gets damp, and if water gets to it the lime slakes 
and the carbon of the coke joins with the hydrogen of the water 
to make the lighting gas, acet)dene. Because of this, carbide 
should not be kept in the house, although the small packages 
used for bicycle lamps have given little or no trouble. 

THE GENERATOR. 

Generators, as the machines for making acetylene are call¬ 
ed, of the size used for farm houses, are zinc tanks which hold 
about a barrel. In them carbide and water are brought togeth¬ 
er and acetylene and slaked lime are formed. The gas passes 
into a tank, more than double the size of the generator, which 
is shaped like the big tank for city gas, having at the bottom 
a seal of water to keep the gas from getting out. In nearly 
all generators the carbide is shaken down into water a little 
at a time by a clock mechanism. In the other machines water 


— 53 — 


is fed to the carbide drop by drop. It is best to' feed the car¬ 
bide to the water because the large amount of water keeps the 
generator from being made hot enough to expode. 

THE AREA OF DANGER. 

The danger is near the generator. The gas may escape 
from a hole in a tube or from the opening of a seam caused 
by the water freezing. A number of deadly accidents have 
come from persons who were cleaning the generator striking 
a match to see if the work were well done. If the generator 
is outside there is little or no danger of an explosion in the 
house lighted by it. The holes in the burners are too small 
for the finest sewing needle to enter. So, if all the burners 
in the room were opened there would be no danger. Ten 
times as much city gas would pass through an open burner. 

THE NOSE GIVES NOTICE. 

Acetylene always lets one know when it is leaking. It 
has so strong an odor that one part of it in ten thousand parts 
of air gives notice to the nose that it is there. The generator 
maker says the odor is like that of garlic. The farmer boy 
would say that acetylene protected itself against being fired by 
the same means that the polecat protects itself from being 
fired at. 

Another fact in favor of this new gas is, that the amount 
of it needed to make a light has but one-sixth the explosive 
power of enough city gas to make the same light. 

ACETYLENE VS. GASOLENE PLANTS. 

The advantages of acetylene over gasolene vapor are: 

A much smaller quantity is used to make the same light. 

The flame gives off less heat and poisons the air less. 

The light from it is white, so it does not distort colors in 
the eye of the sewing woman. 

Its odor betrays a leak before a dangerous amount of gas 
has escaped. 

It is so light that it is carried away rapidly while gasolene 
vapor loafs around. 

Gasolene in one way is better than acetylene. A dame is 
needed to explode gasolene vapor, while a soldering iron or any 
red hot metal, a pipe or a glowing coal or match stick will ex¬ 
plode acetylene. 

Should an acetylene generator or gasolene carbureter be 


54 — 


placed inside the home? The fire marshal cannot advise it. 
The water in an acetylene machine will freeze if put in a build¬ 
ing that is not warmed. Then there is a temptation to build 
a fire near it, or to thaw out the water seal with hot irons, 
both of which are dangerous. 

In farm houses and churches generators are usually placed 
in the cellar, and explosion may come from leaking gas being 
ignited from an open flame of some sort. 

Acetylene hand lamps are now made, and it is coming into 
use for light-houses, search lights, headlights and for lighting 
railway wrecks at night. The great heat of its flame has led to 
its use for welding heavy iron. 

Everyone has noticed the little tank on the step of an auto¬ 
mobile. It is filled with asbestos dampened with acetone which 
takes a large bulk of the acetylene, used in the lamps of the 
machine. 


LESSON NO. 22. 

Garrets, Bedrooms and Closets 

THE DANGERS TO BE HUNTED. 

There would not be so many fires if we would use our eyes 
and brains. 

We should look carefully at our chimneys where they pass 
through the garret. If the foundation of the chimney has set¬ 
tled there may be cracks in the chimney, and the mortar may 
fall out, leaving a hole. Sparks come out through cracks in 
the chimney and they set fire to any old stuff that may be 
stored in the garret, or attic. The summer sun shining on the 
roof may, by its heat, set fire to greasy rags or clothing hang¬ 
ing in the attic. The chimneys send out so much heat in winter 
that they may make greasy, or oily things near them burst 
into flame. 

A garret is always hot. There should be openings for cool 
air to pass through. All the rough wood in the garret should 
be whitewashed or painted so that the fuzz on the wood will 
not take fire from sparks. 

THE BEDROOM. 

The joints of the stovepipe should be riveted together and 
the stovepipe must fit closely both the stove and the chimney- 
hole. The stovepipe should be six inches or more away from 
any wood. There should be a tight-fitting double collar of 
tin or sheet-iron around it. 

Remember: Chimney-holes when not in use should never 
be left open. They should not be stuffed with paper or rags. 
They should not be covered with wall-paper. They should al¬ 
ways be closed tightly with a sheet-iron stopper. See that 
the stovepipes and chimnev-holes in your bedrooms ^and other 
rooms) are all in good shape, if you do not wish your home 
to burn. 

GAS JETS. 

Gas jets should have globes or wire cages around them, 
if they are made to swing around. If they do not have some¬ 
thing to keep the flame away from the curtains and the furni¬ 
ture or clothing, there will surely be fires. 

Gas jets should not be near windows or doors; the wind 
might blow the flame out and the .gas would escape and choke 
the people sleeping in the room. If there were another light in 


-56 


« 


the room, the gas would reach that flame and then there would 
be an explosion. A gas jet should not be placed nearer the 
ceiling than two and one-half feet. 

If electric lights hang from cords, do not tie or knot the 
cords or hang them over nails or hooks. Do not have electric 
light bulbs near anything that will burn easily. 

A gas stove, used in a bedroom, should have a pipe running 
to the chimney. When gas is burned in a stove that has no 
chimney it is sure to injure the health of those who sleep near 
it. If turned high it may choke or suffocate them. 

The use of a rubber tube to carry gas to a stove, is very 
dangerous, because it is likely to come off and cause an ex¬ 
plosion. 

CLOTHES CLOSETS. 

Most closets have no openings or windows through which 
the air can move to carry away heat. When the heat cannot 
pass off, greasy rags, aprons, overalls, oil or paint kept in the 
closets may take fire. We should never light a match to use in 
hunting for something in a closet. The match heads may fly 
off, or the hot match sticks may drop and set fire to the cloth¬ 
ing hanging there. 

The most dangerous closet is the one under a stairway. If 
such a closet is on fire, the people can not come safely down 
the stairs from the rooms above. Never put ashes in a closet. 
Hot ashes cause many terrible fires. 

Only a little match-head, 

Dropped on the closet floor; 

Only a little apron, 

Hanging beside the door; 

Only a little creeping, 

Up to the apron-strings ; 

Only a, home in ashes! 

Think of these “little” things! 






- 57 - 


LESSON NO. 23. 

Common Fire Dangers 

IN KITCHENS AND CELLARS. 

More than half the fires that burn houses start in the kitch¬ 
ens. The cook stoves are fed too much and the wood of the 
floor and walls near the stoves is not protected. A kitchen 
stove may set afire a bare wooden wall three feet away from 
it. It is safe to place the stove a foot away from the wall, if 
the wall is covered with a sheet of tin, zinc or iron. The sheet 
of metal must not be tacked against the wood. It must be 
hung on screw books a half-inch away from the wall to allow 
the air to get behind it and carry away the heat. If the elbow 
of the stovepipe is within a foot of the ceiling, there is danger 
of fire unless the ceiling is covered by a sheet of metal. 

THE FLOOR. 

The floor under the stove should be covered by a sheet 
of metal large enough to come out a foot beyond the ash pan 
and a foot beyond the door through which the wood is put 
into a wood stove. 

Do not hang cothes very near to a stove when you wish to 
dry or air them. Do not leave kindling near the stove to dry. 

It is wise to keep things that will burn easily away from stoves. 

A easolene stove should be closed on three sides and its 
burners shoud be at least two feet from the floor. 

THE PANTRY. 

The flame from a jointed gas bracket may be swung around 
against the pantry wall and start a fire. It may be swung # 
against the paper used to cover a shelf, and set fire to it. If 
jointed brackets must be used, the flame should have a globe 
around it in every case and even then care must be taken that 
it is not swung near wood, paper, etc. 

The kerosene can should not be kept within fifteen feet 
of the stove, and the gasolene can should not be kept anywhere 
in the kitchen, or pantry. Indeed, there is no safe place for 
a gasolene can except underground, and it is unsafe even there 
if it is not tightly corked. 

FOUND IN CELLARS. 

The double-jointed swinging gas fixture causes many of the 
fires that start in cellars; it is so easy to swing it against some¬ 
thing that will burn. The worst fire dangers, common in cel- 


-58 


lars, are from the top of the furnace being too near the floor 
above it and the pipes being too close to the wood of the build¬ 
ing. Charred wood near a furnace should be cut away, be¬ 
cause it will burn very readily, and then the wood remaining 
should be covered by a sheet of metal, fastened so that the air 
can pass between it and the wood. When a furnace is put in 

place, care should be taken to have it a safe distance from all 

* 

wood-work. 

Warm air flues should have a collar around them, where 
they pass through a floor because they become hot enough to 
set the wood afire. If trash is thrown on the furnace top, it 
may start a fire. Gas jets should be as much as two and one- 
half feet below the ceiling or have above them a shield of tin. 
The tin should not rest flat against the wood. 

USING MATCHES. 

Do not use matches while getting something from a dark 
cellar. If there is no gas in the cellar, there should be a coal 
oil lamp fixed safely in a bracket. Cellar windows should be 
covered by wire screens, so that cigar stubs, fire-crackers, and 
glowing match sticks cannot be thrown into the cellar by care¬ 
less persons. 

If ashes are moist or mixed with greasy rubbish, they are 
liable to set fire to themselves. If kept in the cellar, they may 
set the house afire. 

Use your nose—not a light—to learn if gas is coming in be¬ 
side the pipe from the street. 

One-sixth of all the gas put in the big pipes in the streets 
leaks *out under the pavement. It is likely to get into the cel¬ 
lars through the loose earth around the house pipes. When 
this gas reaches a blaze it will explode, killing people and de¬ 
stroying buildings. 


V 


— 59 - 


LESSON NO. 24. 

Fire Song 

(Tune of “Marching Through Georgia.”) 

1. Listen to my story old—my mission well you know: 

I warm you with my balmy breath, when chilly breezes blow. 
The Spirit of the Flame am I, God’s gift to man below— 
Blessing or bane, as ye make me. 

First Chorus. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Your servant true I’ll be, 

But O 1 beware! From all abuse I’ll flee. 

Your homes I’ll turn to ashes, while T laugh aloud with glee— 
“Blessing or bane, as ye make me!” 

2. I’m the King of Fireland—mv subjects love my sway; 

I hide within the matches; in the glowing embers play; 

I warm the little fingers on a frosty winter day— 

Blessing or bane, as ye make me. 

• Second Chorus. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Of service true I sing, 

But O beware, lest cruel Death I bring! 

To ev’ry wind of heaven I would now this warning fling:— 
“Blessing or bane, as ye make me!” 

3. I’m the King of Fireland—my scepter’s tipped with flame. 

I stretch it forth, and things I touch are nevermore the same ; 
Imprison me near walls of wood, and ye must bear the blame— 
Blessing or bane, as ye make me. 

(Use 2d chorus here.) 

4. I’m the King of Fireland—my touch all things can change; 
For Oil and Gasolene I have a longing passing strange; 

I care not who may perish; when they come within my 
range— 

Blessing or bane, as ye make me. 

(Use 2d chorus here.) 

5. I’m the King of Fireand—I leap across the wires; 

In “circuits short” I make my rounds, and kindle mighty 
fires, 

With tiniest bit of match-heads I can light my fun’ral pyres— 
Blessing or bane, as ye make me. 

(Use 2d chorus here.) 




—6o— 


LESSON NO. 25. 

Village Church Fires 

THE LOSS USUALLY TOTAL. 

Because people are careless, more thah 400 churches are 
burned in America every year. It takes more than $2,000,000 
worth of work to build them again. 

The churches in small towns and in the country are nearly 
all made of wood. The walls are made by standing pieces of 
wood on end and nailing boards on the outside and laths to 
hold the plaster on the inside. You see that such a wall would 
be very much like a row of wooden chimney’s. A fire started 
anywhere in the wall is drawn up under the roof by one of these 
chimneys. There are no partitions to hold back the fire until 
people can get there to put it out. In most cases water must 
be carried some distance. If there is a spire, it acts like a chim¬ 
ney to make the fire burn faster. If a fire is started, the build¬ 
ing is burned to the ground. 

More than half of all these churches are burned by care¬ 
lessness with stoves and flues. 

CARING FOR THE STOVES. 

These churches are usually warmed by “cannon” or “burn- 
side" stoves which burn coal. There are few “box” stoves in 
which wood is used. Any church stove which stands on a floor 
of wood should have under it a sheet of tin or zinc big enough 
to come out two feet farther than its feet do. The coal-box, 
if made of wood, should be kept two feet away from the stove. 

The stovepipe gives a great deal of heat if there is not a 
coat of soot in it. Pipes and stoves should be cleaned of soot 
twice in each winter. Soot holds heat in better than a feather 
bed. 

Someone should see to it that the inside of the stovepipes 

are scraped every autumn before cold weather comes. There 
are likely to be spots of rust in stovepipes when the stoves 
are not used during the summer. When these rusted spots 
drop out of the pipes they leave holes through which sparks 
can fly. 

There are some old lines which tell us: 

A fly and a flea 

In a pipe were imprisoned, 

“Let us flee!” said the fly, 

“Let us fly!” said the flea; 

So they flew through a flaw in the fide. 


6i— 


Jarring or beating or even scrubbing will not clean a pipe 
well. It must be scraped. 

THE CHURCH CHIMNEYS. 

All chimneys should start on the ground. A chimney which 
is built upon a board or stone put on top of the joists in the 
ceiling is not a safe chimney. It is dangerous because the 
joists may twist and the chimney may be cracked so that sparks 
can get out into the attic. The stovepipe must not run through 
a space above the ceilnig where it can not be seen for that is 
never safe. 

After the janitor of a church has started the fires he may 
go away and if the stoves and flues are not good the church 
may burn down. Very often the janitor leaves as soon as the 
service is ended and no one is there to put out any fire which 
may start while the room is cooling. 

LIGHTING RURAL CHURCHES. 

There is little danger from kerosene oil lamps, if they are 
fastened to the wall, except the danger of their exploding. If 
the wick does not fill the wick tube, the flame may set fire to 
the gas that forms within the lamp bowl and there may be an 
explosion. A dirty burner is always dangerous. If the brass is 
not bright air cannot carry off the heat from it. It then be¬ 
comes so hot that gas is formed, which bursts the bowl. 

ACETYLENE LIGHTS. 

The acetylene machine gives churches a beautiful white light 
and it is cheaper than gas, but is dangerous if badly handled. 
The danger is near the machine, which should be kept in a brick 
house outside the church. One part of acetylene mixed with 
thirty-three times as much air makes an explosive but this gas 
cannot get into the church fast enough to do any harm be¬ 
cause the holes in the burners are so small. 

GASOLENE FOR LIGHTING. 

Gasolene lighting machines give light that is cheap and 
they are safe for country churches when they are kept in 
brick houses outside the churches and are carefully treated. 
The machine must be set low enough to let the pipes slope up¬ 
ward into the church so that gasolene cannot run in them. A 
machine which takes the gasolene into the building is not safe. 

More country churches are burned by lightning than by 
anything else except the heaters. Every church spire or belfry 
should have a lightning rod on it. The rod should be examined 
before thunder storms begin in the spring to see if it has been 
hurt in any way. 


-62 


LESSON NO. 26. 

The Burning of City Churches. 

HOW THEY SHOULD BE PROTECTED. 

The number of churches burned in the United States each 
year is about 600 and the loss of money from these fires is more 
than two million dollars. Heaters, lightning strokes and spite 
are the three great causes of church fires. 

Sometimes there is loss of life from a fire in a church. More 
of these deaths come from people getting jammed in door¬ 
ways or stairways than from being burned. To let the people 
out safe all church doors should swing out toward the street 
and stairs to galleries should be straight, wide and not steep. 

THE FURNACE AND FLUES. 

The greatest number of church fires start from the furnace 
or its pipes. In many buildings the top of the furnace is too 
near the floor above it. In others, pipes which carry hot air 
into the church above, touch the wood of the floor. If the wood 
over a furnace or near a flue or pipe is charred, a piece of tin 
or zinc must be put between the charred spot and the furnace. 
It must not be nailed against the charred board because there 
should be room for air to pass between them to carry away 
the heat. The charcoal formed on the face of a board by its 
being kept too hot, will suck in any kind of gas. It will take 
in 35 times its bulk of natural gas. If it does this it will take 
fire the next time it is heated. If this charred wood gets wet, 
it may take fire when heat dries it. If grease gets on it there 
will surely be a fire the next Sunday. 

STEAM HEATING. 

A steam pipe against wood will char it and then set fire to 
the charcoal it has made. It may seem strange that steam, 
which is water in the form of vapor, can make anything burn. 
But it is true that steam, or heated air, may make a pipe red 
hot. So wood must not come within half a foot of a furnace 
pipe and all such pipes should be wrapped with some thing 
which will not burn. Painting a tube black makes it give out 
more heat. 

LIGHTING. 

The greatest danger from gas lights in churches is from the 
gas brackets which have joints in them, because they can be 
moved to one side so that the fiame of the gas may touch wood. 


— 63 — 


These are often put in the cellar and are sometimes used to 
make light near the organ. The lights in them should be cov¬ 
ered by globes. Really, there is no place, in which a light is 
needed, that a swinging gas bracket is safe. The number of 
churches burned by them is greater than the number burned 
by the exposion of gas from leaks. 

The electric light is fine for churches but too often the wires 
are put in badly, so the elctricity may jump from one of them 
to another, or to a pipe which runs to the ground. Eectricity 
in jumping makes a heat which will burn not only wood but 
iron. Many large buildings have been burned by wires being 
put in wrong. 

Christmas trees in churches often take fire from the wax 
candles used to light them. This may not set the building afire 
but nearly always some persons are badly hurt in the mad rush 
made to get out. 

Some churches have been burned bv the use of a stove for 
cooking during a festival. 

PROTECTING CHURCHES. 

The people who' own a fine church can well afford to buy 
water buckets and keep them, filled with water, where they 
can be gotton quickly when a fire starts. Still better, they 
might have several chemical extinguishers. These extinguish¬ 
ers are slim barrels of metal with a small hose at one end, and 
are often seen in the big stores. With one of them a man can 
throw water higher than he can with a bucket and the gas in 
them, which forces the water out, is cf a kind that smothers 
fire. 

A pipe organ burns easily, quickly and with a great heat. 

In nearly all big churches one may find in the basement 
under a stair, or in a box, paint, oil or greasy rags which may 
at any time set themselves afire. 

Lightning rarely strikes the high office buildings of cities, 
but a tall church steeple is liable to stroke, so it should have 
a lightning rod on it. 

One in six of all city churches burned takes fire from the 
burning of a building near it. In more than half of these the 
fire catches at a window. The heat from the burning building 
cracks the glass in the church window so pieces of it fall out. 
Then the blaze gets in. So, church windows should be mad ' 
with metal sash and wired glass. This glass is made with wire 


— 6 . 4 — 


woven like that used for chicken coops, but with smaller holes, 
put in the center of the pane when the glass is made. The 
wires keep pieces of the glass from falling out when it is crack¬ 
ed by heat. 

The roof should be of slate, tile, iron or gravel. Doors 
which open near other bindings should be covered with tin. 
The trimming at the eaves should be of metal. 

Punishment for carelessness about fire dangers falls alike 
on the just and on the unjust. 




\ 





LESSON NO. 27. 

Electricity 

LIGHTING WITH INCANDESCENT LAMPS. 

Electricity causes light, heat, motion and lightning. We 
can not weigh it, but we can make it and measure it with 
machines. We call it a fluid only because it flows. We burn 
coal to heat water and change it into steam and the steam 
moves an engine. The engine moves a coil of copper wire 
near a magnet. This makes a current called electricity to move 
in the wires. The machine which changes motion into elec¬ 
tricity is a dynamo. 

An engine makes a dynamo turn, causing electricity to 
travel on a wire. At the other end of the wire the electricity 
makes a motor turn. A dynamo makes elctricity and a motor 
uses it. A motor is a dynamo run backward. The moving 
of a machine makes electricity at one end of a wire, which runs 
a motor at the other end and the electricity is changed back to 
motion in the wheels of a street car or the machines in a fac¬ 
tory. 

Electricity flows through copper or iron very easily. It 
cannot move easily through the air and it cannot move at all 
through glass or porcelain. It is such hard work for electricity 
to go through the air that it makes the air white-hot where it 
passes. It is the streak of white-hot air that we see and call 
lightning. The noise the bolt of electricity makes when it forces 
its way through the air is what we call thunder. 

When electricity comes from a cloud to the earth it usually 
goes through a tree or a house, for it is easier for it to travel 
through wood than through air. The tree or house through 
which it passes is aways shattered more or less by the effort 
the thunderbolt makes to get through. If the house has a good 
lightning rod of steel or copper on it, the electricity comes 
down that and does no harm. 

THE INCANDESCENT LAMP. 

It is safer to light vour house with electricity than it is 
to light it with gas, kerosene or candles. You do not need 
matches, when you light with electricity and there is no blaze 
to set anything afire. But if the wires are not put in as they 
should be they get red-hot and start wood to burning. 

What causes the light from an electric lamp? 


— 66 — 


Within the bulb is a fine black thread called a filament. 
This thread has been heated until it is charcoal. At each 
end of the thread is a copper wire to carry a current of electrici¬ 
ty. You will see that the electricity must pass through the 
charcoal and it is harder for it to get through charcoal than 
through a copper wire. It works so hard to get through that 
the thread within the lamp is made white-hot, and very bright. 
The thread in some of the new lamps is made from one of the 
rare metals. If air were left in the lamp of course the thread 
would be burned at once, but all of the air is pumped out 
through a small tube at the lower end of the bulb. When all 
the air is out this tube is melted off and that leaves the little 
point which you see on every globe. 

Only one-twentieth of the electricity used by an incandes¬ 
cent electric light lamp is changed into light. The rest is 
changed into heat. So the bulb may become hot enough to burn 
anything that burns easily. A candle, gas jet, or kerosene 
lamp gives off ioo times as much heat as it does light. The 
common electric, lamp makes as much light as sixteen candles. 
The larger size gives as much as thirty-two candles. 

If a common lighted lamp is placed against a pine board, 
it will char it in four hours. If two thickneses of muslin or 
curtain stuff are wrapped around a lighted lamp, the goods will 
begin to smoke in three minutes. Cotton will char in ten 
minutes if placed against a lighted lamp and then a slight draft 
of air will set it afire. Newspaper chars in three minutes and 
takes fire in 45 minutes. 

THE HEAT OF THE LAMP. 

Celuloid combs and pins soon burn (with an explosion) 
if put against a lighted lamp. If a lighted lamp is placed in a 
pint of water, it will make the water boil in an hour. 

An electric lamp, or bulb, is useful for four months in cold 
weather or twice as long in warm weather when the evenings 
are short. After that it is cheaper to get a new lamp for it 
takes too much electricity to light the old one. When the lamp 
looks brownish you may know that you have it used it long 
enough. 

When electrical lamps are placed so that the light from 
them goes straight into one’s eyes they must be frosted or eyes 
will be hurt. Plain lamps light a room much better than frosted 
lamps can light it. 


- 67 - 


short CIRCUITS. 

The wire running to the electric lamp and the one running 
away from it are usually close together. If the covering of the 
wires is worn off or wet where they are near together, the cur¬ 
rent will cross from one wire to the other instead of going 
around through the lamp to do its work. Then the wires be¬ 
come very hot—often so hot that they melt and set fire to any¬ 
thing near that will burn. In this way many houses are burned. 
This is caled “a short circuit.” 

Many buildings are set afire by short circuits in the long 
cords from which some lamps are hung. Persons wet them 
or tie knots in them and hang them over nails and wooden 
corners until the covering is worn through and a short circuit 
forms. A short circuit will make the nail over which such a 
cord is hung red-hot and fire the wood around it. If long 
cords are used, persons are able to move the lamps around in 
many places. They may be careles and move them against 
curtains or draperies which will be set afire„ 


- 68 - 


LESSON NO. 28. 

Electrical Arc Lamps 

AND TROLLEY CARS IN CITY STREETS. 

Children who play with the wires of the incandescent elec¬ 
trical lamps may set the building afire. Children who 1 play 
with wires outside the house are likely to be killed. 

Electricity is measured by the “volt.” Half a volt of elec¬ 
tricity is needed for a telephone wire. It takes more strength 
to move a street car, so 500 volts are needed for that. It takes 
6,500 volts for the street lamps of the city. The “ampere” 
is the measure of the amount of electricity used in a building for 
making light, or for running machinery. The number of volts 
or amperes used is shown by a meter, which is read like a gas 

meter. 

The no volts of electricity put on the house wires may 
burn the skin, but will not shock one to death. The wires run¬ 
ning to the street lamps carry much more electricity than is 
needed to kill a person. The street lamp wires cross the house 
wires in many places, and a house wire may swing against a 
lamp wires in many places, and a house wire may swing against 
a street lamp wire, and thus get in it enough electricity to kill 
a person instantly. Any small wire may carry a killing charge 
of electricity. 

A boy in Ohio used fine copper wire, instead of string, in 
flying his kite. The wire got across the street lamp wire, and 
the current of electricity killed him. His mother tried to take 
the kite string from his hand, and she too was killed. 

ARCS. 

If a wire carrying electricity breaks, and the ends stay near 
each other, the electricity jumps across the space between. 
This is known as an arc. Nothing else on earth is so hot as an 
electric arc. It is about 23 times as hot as boiling water. The 
electricity may jump from the middle of one wire to another, 
when the wires are too close. Many buildings are burned by 
arcs in wires. 

It is an arc in the street lamp that makes the light. The 
current has to jump from one end of the wire to the other, for 
the wire has a piece cut out of it, where it passes through the 
lamp. The heat would melt the ends of the wire, if tips of 
carbon were not put on them. Carbon does not melt. The 


— 69 - 


upper carbon tip gets white-hot and makes the light. Elect- 
tricity for street lighting travels out from the power house on 
the wire which runs through the lamps and back to the power 
house by the other wire. Light wires run in pairs and they are 
held on glass knobs. Electricity does not pass through glass. 
These knobs are called “insulators.” 

STREET LAMPS. 

The glass globe around the street lamp keeps sparks from 
flying about and prevents moths and bettles burning themselves 
in the flame. The globe is frosted to make the light easier for 
the eyes. One of these lamps give as much light as 2,000 can¬ 
dles. It casts about $80 a year to feed it with electricity and 
to put in new carbons. 

The new electric lamps which give a flood of bright yellow 
light are known as “flaming arcs.” The light given by the 
flaming arc is five times a great as that of the common street 
lamp. It is equal to the light of 10,000 candles. 

GROUNDS. 

Electricity is always trying to return to Mother Earth. 
From a wire carrying it, it will run down to the earth, through 
any wire, iron rod or tin pipe which happens to touch the 
charged wire. It will jump several inches to reach the earth. 

If lightning is traveling along the top wire of a fence, it 
will jump more than a foot to reach a cow because it can 
‘quickly get to the ground through her. A cow is two-thirds 
water and electricity can easily pass through water. A man 
is also a good conductor for the same reason. 

When the electricity leaks from a wire into some metal it 
is called a “ground.” Grounds are common from wires touch¬ 
ing gas and water pipes and other wires. A ground may easily 
make enough heat to set a building on fire. 

STREET CAR DANGERS. 

The electrical current for a street car passes down the 
trolley pole, through the controller which the motormao uses, 
to a motor under the car. From the motor it goes through the 
wheels to the rails. The force put in a trolley wire is never 
less than 500 volts. That is enough to kill a person who gets 
all for it. The current is the same on the third rail, which 
sometimes is used instead of the trolley wire. Each of the two 
motors under the car has the strength of 25 horses. 


— 7 °— 


The president of the street, car company in an Indiana 
city was killed because he forgot how eager electricity is to 
reach the earth. He saw a broken trolley wire, and got a step- 
ladder and climbed it to bring the wire down. The moment 
he reached the ground the current passed through him killing 
him instantly and burning his body. A lightning flash along 
the telephone wire injured his wife severely while friends were 
telling her the sad news of his death. 

Most persons have been frightened by noise and jar from 
an explosion under a street car. There is no danger at all from 
that. If the current of electricity gets so strong that it is likely 
to hurt the motor a piece of soft wire burns with noise and 
smoke. This stops the electricity. 




— 71 - 


LESSON NO. 29. 

Telegraph and Telephone Wires. 

MAY CARRY A DEADLY CURRENT. 

Telephone and telegraph wires do not carry currents of 
electricity strong enough to kill anyone; but at many street 
corners they cross electric light and power wires. These 
light and power wires carry killing currents, and they often are 
on the same line of poles. 

If a small wire touches one that is carrying a large load 
of electricity ,it is heated so hot that it wil burn any wood it 
touches. So, any wire may start a fire that will burn a building. 

Telephone and telegraph wires may be broken off by the 
wind, or swaying limbs of trees. Then they may fall across 
light or power wires, which will put in them a current of elec¬ 
tricity strong enough to kill anyone who may touch them. 

Do not touch any wire that you see hanging or lying about; 
you may be killed, or seriously burned. Boys (and “Tom 
boys”) should not climb a pole that carries wires. The ground 
wire, and the iron tube which covers the lower part of it, beside 
the pole, may carry a deadly current. A guy wire, used to 
steady a pole, may be charged with a load of electricity five 
times as great as that needed to kill a boy. 

O •s 

THE USE OF FUSES. 

A fuse is a piece of soft metal, like solder, which is put 
into every wire where it branches from the stem which feeds it. 
If the current gets too strong, from the dynamo working too 
hard, or from a short, circuit., or from the touch of another wire, 
this fuse melts out, and thus breaks the circuit. These fuses 
are needed in all wires, but are most needed in the wires in 
telegraph offices. Electricity from lightning miles away may 
come into these offices, and burn the instruments, or the build¬ 
ing. The same kind of fuses may be seen through the glass 
doors that cover the knife switches. By these knife switches 
light is turned on in different parts of factories and stores. 

TELEPHONES. 

The 85 million people in America have more telephones 

than the 500 million people in Europe. 

The telephone saves far more property than it destroys, 
because evervbodv knows how to use it, to call the fire depart¬ 
ment. But a serious shock may come thiough a telephone win., 


— 72 — 

if a wire carrying a strong current of electricity touches it. At 
nearly every city street corner are telephone wires crossing 
under electric light wires, which carry 550 volts. If one of the 
telephone wires breaks its loose ends are likely to touch these 

wires that carry strong currents. 

In Wapakoneta a lineman, having a telephone wire in his 
hand ,let it touch the wire of an interurban line, and he was 
instantly killed. 

Telephone wires that are not being used should not be left 
on poles and houses. They may rust off, or be broken, and 
then they may fall across wires that will give them a deadly 
load of electricity. 

A boy in Toledo was working for the telephone company. 
In pulling an old wire to roll it up, he let it touch an electric 
light wire. He pitched forward against the curb. He died a 
few minutes after the doctor reached him. 

WIRES IN ALLEYS. 

Telephone poles sometimes carry as many as 250 wires. 
They usually are in alleys, and they must be cut before the 
firemen can put up their ladders, in case of fire. If one of these 
wires falls across a power wire, the fireman has to let the fire 
burn until the deadly current in the power wire is shut off. 
In some large cities the telephone wires are put under ground. 

While at a telephone it is not wise to touch another phone, 
or any metal connected with the earth, with the hand which is 
not in use. There is danger of a severe shock or a bad burn from 
getting the current through one’s hands. A lady in a railway 
office tried to use phones of different companies at the same 
time, and the current made a short circuit through her arms, 
so that she could not let go of the phones. The station agent 
tore one of them from her grasp, releasing her from the cur¬ 
rent. 

The telephone should not be used during a thunder-storm. 
Lightning can come in on the wire. A lady of Shelby county 
was called by phone while it was storming. She was talking 
when lightning struck the telephone wire. The hair was burned 
from her head, and she was unconscious for several hours. 


LESSON NO. 30. 

To Save Lives of Persons. 

* 

STUNNED BY ELECTRICITY. 

\ ou have learned that electric light wires often fall on 
telegraph, telephone, messenger and fire alarm wires and charge 
them with enough electricity to kill the strongest man. Below 
all other wires at street corners is the trolley wire and that car¬ 
ries at least 500 volts. If you should get the full force of the 
500 volts, it would kill you. Often, above them all, are wires 
carrying power to run machines in factories. In a high wind 
a swaying branch of a shade tree may hit these wires and they 
may break or sag and touch the other wires; then the other 
wires receive a dangerous amount of electricity. 

An electric light wire in Cincinnati was broken a few years 
ago, during a storm. This wire carried 6,500 volts of electricity; 
a young lady passed by it and carelessly pushed it aside with 
her hand. She was instantly killed. 

In the Ohio penitentiary 1,700 volts are used in killing a 
murderer. In New York 1,200 volts are used. 

HOW AN ELECTRIC SHOCK FEELS. 

The Assistant Chief of the Fire Department of Trenton, 
N. J., had a narrow escape from being shocked to death by an 
electric wire. An overhead wire fell and struck him on the 
shoulder. In speaking of it he said: 

“The shock was terrible. First was a blow on the shoulder 
which knocked me down. It was heavy but did not hurt. 
When I struck the ground I could neither speak nor breathe. 
I felt that my whole body was being crushed and still there was 
no pain. I seemed to be sinking and still there was no pain. 
Then relief came suddenly and I was picked up by someone 
and carried out. I knew what was going on and yet I could 
not speak. In a few minutes I knew what had happened.” 

WHEN ONE IS STUNNED. 

When one is stunned by electricity from a dynamo, if he 
is still touching the metal or wire, it is very dangerous to the 
person who lifts him. The person who moves the wire must 
stand on a board or some dry clothing and touch the wire only 
with a stick of dry wood, dry rope or a coat. 

In some cases the current can be stopped by lifting the 
stunned one from the earth. Fie should be lifted by his clothes. 


In other cases the dynamo at the other end of the line can be 
stopped. 

When he is away from the wire and a doctor is called dash 
water in his face and rub his spine with ice. Give him no 
whisky or anything* else to swallow. 

BRING THE STUNNED TO LIFE. 

The person stunned by electricity may live, if he is helped 
quickly by those who know what to do. The shock stiffens 
his muscles, and his heart, which is made of muscle, is too stiff 
to work. If nothing is done he will die. But if his lungs are 
made to fill with air every few seconds, as in life, he may soon 
get well. 

Put a tightlv-rolled coat or blanket under his neck and 
shoulders as he lies upon his back. This straightens his wind¬ 
pipe. With a handkerchief, to prevent it slipping, hold his 
tongue out of his mouth. This keeps the throat open. If his 
teeth are clinched, pry them open with a piece of wood. 

One person should stand behind his head and catch hold 
of both arms at the elbow. Pie should draw them backward 
over the head and pull on them long enough to say slowly “one 
hundred and one.” Then the arms must be moved downward 
and the elbows pressed hard against the sides of the chest. Then 
say “one hunded and one' again. These motions must be made 
over and over again and if they are made regularly the stunned 
one will be forced to take 15 breaths each minutes. This is the 
correct number. If there are several persons present, it is wise 
to have one for each arm and another to rub his legs hard. 

Continue the movements until the stunned one begins to 
use his own muscles to fill his chest with air. Continue work¬ 
ing over him two hours, or more, if it takes that long to re¬ 
vive him. After he begins to breathe he should be kept still 
until his heart beats are strong. 


LESSON NO. 3i. 

Fighting Fire in the Home; 

HOW WATER PUTS OUT A BLAZE. 

A fire in the home may mean a great loss. It may mean 
the loss of the building; of precious things that money could 
not buy, because they were gifts of dead or absent dear ones; 
it may mean the loss of the lives of loved ones or our own lives. 
Although a fire may cause great suffering and bring great loss 
there are few families who have anything* with which to put 
out the flames. A ladder should be near at hand so that one 
can quickly carry water up to the roof to put out the fire 
which sparks may start in the shingles. A ladder is neeeded 
at a country school-house, for nearly all fires in these build¬ 
ings start in the roof or attic. A ladder is often needed to 
save the lives of persons in the upper stories of burning build¬ 
ings. The fire soon fills the stairway with smoke or flame and 
one cannot get out that way. A ladder can be made in a day 
or bought for three dollars. 

FIGHTING FIRE. 

In a farm-house kitchen there is usually a bucket of water 
for drinking or cooking. There should be another bucket al¬ 
ways kept full of water to be used in putting out fires. “Fire 
buckets” are made with rounding bottoms and will not stand 
alone but must be held up by a shelf with a hole in it, or hung 
on a nail. In winter salt is put in the water which fills the fire 
bucket; the water cannot freeze with salt in it. 

CARBONIC ACID GAS EXTINGUISHERS. 

The best thing to have in a house or store for putting 
out a fire is one of the metal cans, or tanks, known as “carbonic 
acid gas fire-extinguishers.” You may have seen such a can 
in a big* building* or on a fire department wagon. One of them 
holds two bucketfuls of water and is three times as high as it 
is thick. At the top it has a piece of hose a yard long. 

When the extinguisher is to be used, it is turned upside 
down. The turning over spills an acid into a cup of baking 
soda. When they get together carbonic acid gas is formed. 
This gas presses so hard that the water and gas may be thrown 
through the hose to the top of a three-story house. Many 
places in a house can be reached by a stream from an extin¬ 
guisher when they could not be reached with a bucket of water. 


THE GAS. 

The gas carried by the water helps greatly in smothering 
the flame. If water carrying carbonic acid gas is thrown on a 
fire that is burning between a ceiling and the floor above it, 
or in some other place hard to reach, the blaze is smothered 
at once by lack of air. 

Each one of the three gallons of water in the can, takes 
out with it 20 gallons of gas. This kind of an extinguisher is 
worth much more if it is used from above the blaze rather 
than below it, because this gas being heavier than the air 
moves downward. 

Firemen have carbonic acid tanks which hold as much as 
a barrel. They use them where the fire is blazing in only one 
or two rooms. 

If there is carbonic acid gas in the water it takes less of 
it, so there is not so much loss from wetting things. 

Perhaps you have seen pretty metal tubes marked “dry 
powder extinguisher.” They have in them baking soda to throw 
on a fire. Firemen think they are of little use. 

HOW WATER PUTS OUT FIRE. 

Any substance must be made hot before it will take fire. 
When the heat in it is great enough to loosen the atoms of 
carbon in it, so that they will join atoms of oxygen in the air, 
there is a blaze. Anything that will cool the burning substance 
so that there is no longer heat enough to turn loose the carbon 
atoms, will put out the fire. 

Water will cool burning material better than anything else 
can cool it It cools the red hot coals and so stops the fire. 
Water used freely keeps away from the burning substance the 
air in which is the oxygen that is needed to make a flame. 
Water thrown on a fire is changed to steam and that change 
draws the heat away. 

A little water on a mass of hot coals is changed to carbon 
monoxid gas, which makes a hot flame and may explode. We 
learned this in the lesson on gas lights. 


LESSON NO. 32. 

What to Do 

IF IN A BURNING BUILDING. 

When you see a fire starting- in the house, try to “keep cool.” 
If you know beforehand what to do when a fire is started, you 
may keep cool enough to do it. 

If the blaze is just starting, throw water on the thing that 
is burning—not at the blaze. One bucket of water will do 
more good if thrown on a little at a time, than if it is dashed 
on all at once. 

A small fire may be smothered with a rug or blanket, or 
beaten out with a wet broom. 

If you cannot put out the fire in a minute, yell “Fire," and 
then call the fire department, if there is one. Every city has a 
fire department. Every one living in the house should know the 
telephone number to use, when the fire department is wanted. 
The number should be on the wall, by the telephone, so that 
strangrs will know what number to call. There is no time to 
look in the directory, after a fire starts, and most people would 
be too nervous then to find the right number. Everyone should 
know where the nearest fire-alarm box is, and how to use it. 

Do not leave a door open when you go out to give the alarm. 
If the doors and windows of a room are closed when a fire 
starts in it, one can always get the firemen there in time to 
keep the flames from spreading to another room. The fire soon 
uses all the oxygen in a room that is closed, and it may die out 
if it gets no fresh air. 

TURNING IN AN ALARM. 

The fire alarm box in the street is quicker and surer than 
the telephone. 

Nearly all fire alarms are worked by a hook. Before pull¬ 
ing the hook in this kind of a box, one must open the door. In 
nearly all boxes this is done with a key. If the key is kept in a 
building near by, there is a sign that shows which building. 
In other boxes the key can be seen behind a piece of thin glass 
in the door. One can get it quickly by breaking the glass with 
a stick, stone, or knife-handle. The broken glass falls out of 
the way. 

After the door is unlocked, pull the hook down as far as it 
will move and then let go. That is all. This makes a gong 


-; 8 - 

at the engine house sound the number four times so that the 
firemen may be sure of the count. 

After turning in the alarm go to the burning building to 
see what you can save. Do not go into an upper story when 
the fire is in a lower one because the heat and smoke go up. 

WHILE THE FIREMEN ARE COMING. 

When you have called the firemen try to get out the things 
you want most to save. Don’t throw the clock from the win¬ 
dow and carry out your clothing. Some excited persons have 
done that. 

If the smell of fire wakes you at night, do not dress. Wrap 
yourself in a blanket or quilt and get out the quickest way you 
can. Shut the doors when you have passed through them. Af¬ 
ter calling for help look in and see where and what is the dan¬ 
ger. You can then tell if it is best to try to carrv out the 
household goods. 

The smoke is thickest at the ceiling. One can often get 
through a place filled with smoke by going on the hands and 
knees when he would fall choking if he ran. Holding a wet 
towel or something made of flannel, or even a coat collar over 
the mouth is a wise thing to do. It keeps one from breathing 
into the lungs the choking hot smoke. 

CAUGHT IN A BURNING BUILDING. 

Most fires start at the first floor or basement of the building 
and burn a hole up through the roof. In a house the flames 
travel by the stairways; in a big store or hotel they go quickly 
up the elevator shaft. After reaching the top the fire spreads 
and slowly goes down burning the wood that is left. 

If one is in a burning building with no fire escapes and the 
stairs below are burning or the hall is filled with choking 
smoke, he should shut the door and transom to keep out the 
deadly smoke. Then he should throw open the window to get 
cool air and ot let the firemen and neighbors see where he is 
so that they may bring a ladder to the window. 

One should wait at the window for help until he is scorch¬ 
ed or choking. By that time the firemen will be holding a 
big hoop covered with canvas in which they will catch him 
when he jumps. 

Perhaps the neighbors will hold a blanket to catch him, 
when he leaps. If no one is near, he should throw out the 
bedding, tick and all, and jump on that. It is safer to jump 
into the top of a. tree than to the ground. 


LESSON NO. 33. 

First Aid to the Burned 

AND INJURED IN BURNING BUILDINGS. 

Every year more than six thousand people are burned to 
death in the United States. 

A burn of the first degree (a slight burn) hurts only the 
outside of the skin. The burned place is red, painfully hot, 
and tender. When it gets well the outside layer of skin peels 
off. This outside layer of the skin is made of scales like those 
of a fish, but very much smaller. 

To stop the pain from such a burn the air must be kept 
away from it. Stir a teaspoonful of baking soda into a pint of 
water and wet lint'or cotton witli it. Then put the wet lint or 
cotton over the burn and hold it in place by a bandage. If 
there is no soda use sweet oil or molasses. Many mothers use 
scrapings from a potato. Send for a doctor, if a burn of this 
kind is a large one covering much of the body. While wait¬ 
ing for the doctor the burn should be wrapped in cotton or 
covered with flour. A large burn that does not even blister the 
skin may cause one to die from shock and pain. Big burns 
that are not deep often come from gas and gasolene explosions 
in which the heat only lasts a moment. 

BLISTERS. 

In burns of the second degree there are blisters. Blisters 
are made by water from the blood being poured out to cool 
the burn. The skin over the blister should not be taken away, 
but the water should be let out of it by a needle prick at the 
edge. The clothing should lie taken off carefully so that the 
blisters will not be broken. 

O'ver burns of this kind, place soft, clean rags or cotton 
dipped in carron oil. Carron oil can be bought at any drug 
store. If vou cannot get the carron oil immediately, smear 
cloths with tallow and bandage them over the burned place. 

Burns of the third degree (the deep burns) take the life out 
of all layers of the skin. These burns make the skin hard like 
stiff paper. The dead skin and flesh is gotten rid of by matter 
forming under it. Deep burns often leave the joints stiff and 
they always leave bad scars. Any deep burn should have a 
doctor’s care at once. Until he comes, wrap the burned one in 
a blanket or place him in a bath-tub of warm water. 


-80- 


Most of the deep burns are suffered by persons whose cloth¬ 
ing takes fire. This is because the clothing keeps the flame so 
long against the skin. Children whose clothes take fire are 
usually burned to death. 

SCALDS. 

Scalds are burns from very hot water. They are not likely 
to be deep because the water runs off quickly. The thicker 
the fluid the deeper the scald. Children are in the greatst 
danger when they are burned or scalded on the chest. 

Water will scald long before it gets as hot as flame. Water 
heated to 130 degrees is as painful to the hands as the blaze 
from a match which is 600 to 1,100 degrees. 

A red coal has a heat of at least 90 degrees. Iron begins 
to burn red at 1,000 degrees and the blacksmith heats it to 
more than 1,800 degrees to hammer it out. The flame in a 
kerosene lamp is 1,400 degrees or more. 

CLOTHES AFIRE. 

Do not run or scream when your clothing is afire. Run¬ 
ning fans the flames and screaming makes you breathe deeply 
and draw the heat of the flame to the chest. 

Wrap yourself in some woolen or heavy material and 1 oil 
on the floor. Take something near you—a coat, shawl, rug, 
lounge-cov'er or portiere. If you see any one afire wrap him and 
roll him in this way. If he will not lie down he must be thrown 
down; the blaze can best be put out by rolling him and he 
can be kept from breathing flame if down. 

NOTE:—In connection with this lesson the Fahrenheit thermomete* 
should be shown. 


-81- 


LESSON NO. 34. 

Things Made from Celluloid 

MOVING PICTURE SHOWS. 

lhere are few houses that do not contain something made 
of celluloid and celluloid can easily be set afire. 

Nearly all the pretty, but cheap, combs are made of celluloid. 
1 he following articles are made of it: Brushes of many kinds, 
manicure sets, cuff, handkerchief, soap and oowder-puff boxes, 
trays, knife-handles, piano-keys, baskets, corsets, book-backs, 
playing cards, baby rattles and eye-shades. Any of these may 
be set afire by the heat from a gas jet, kerosene lamp, or elec¬ 
tric light. A hot curling iron or the flame from a match will 
fire any thin piece of celluloid. 

Different makers of this material give it different names; 
it all burns easily, no matter what it is called. Beautiful cloth 
and imitation leather is made by spreading celluloid on cotton 
cloth and passing it through rollers. 

To make celluloid, shreds of cotton or of tissue paper are 
soaked with nitric acid, and then made into a soft mass by 
adding camphor. The dye stuff to make it look like amber, 
ivory, or tortoise-shell is then put into it. This mass is rolled 
in sheets and heated while under hundreds of tons of weight. 
This makes it hard. If nitric acid were used longer, the ma f; s 
would be smokeles powder which is used in cannon. 

Celluloid can be cut or sawed, and, if warmed, can be bent 
or pressed into any shape. 

IT MAY EXPLODE. 

Celluloid always takes fire with a flash an'd burns quickly 
making a great heat. This is because it has oxygen within 
it, just as gunpowder has and the oxygen helps it burn. It 
does not need to get much oxygen from the air around it. 

If celluloid is heated slowly, it gives off a gas. This gas 
mixes with the air and makes an explosive just as gasolene 
vapor does. This vapor is more dangerous than the vapor of 
gasolene because it may take fire itself. Gasolene vapor will 

o 

not explode unless it is touched by a flame or spark, a coal 
or hot iron. 

Several men have been badly burned by having the cellu¬ 
loid collars they were wearing take fire from matches or cigars. 
How dangerous it must be to wear an eye-shade made of this 


-82- 


stuff! A careful mother will never let her baby play with a 
rattle made of celluloid! 

A boy of three let a celluloid side-comb touch the side of 
a gas stove and his hand is crippled for life. 

Some celluloid combs in a store in Marengo took fire from 
a kerosene lamp placed two feet below them. The place was 
set afire. 

A girl near Cincinnati was stooping to tie her shoe in front 
of a grate. A comb in her hair took fire. The burn from this 
left a scarred bald spot as big as a silver dollar. 

MOVING PICTURES. 

The pictures used in a moving-picture machine are photo¬ 
graphed on long ribbons made of celluloid. This ribbon may be 
fired by heat, sparks or the lamp placed behind it. 

If a whole show is on one ribbon, the ribbon is more than 
a quarter of a mile long. It is one and three eighths inches 
wide and one two-hundredths of an inch thick. 

The ribbon is wound from one spool to another, while a 
bright light passes through it, throwing the picture upon the 
muslin stretched across the stage. If the ribbon stops moving 
for an instant, the heat from the light sets it afire with a 
flash and the blaze runs quickly to the mass of celluloid on 
the spools. A spark from the electric ligh-t may fire the rib¬ 
bon. More fires have come from sparks than from heat firing 
the ribbon. 

RIBBONS OFTEN FLASH. 

The buildings are not likely to burn, because the picture 
machines are in iron booths. But the flash of the burning cel¬ 
luloid sometimes frightens the people in the theater so that they 
crush and trample one another in rushing out. This fright is 
made worse, usually, by the fact that the burning celluloid 
which makes a thick smoke is close to the only door. 

The man working the machine is likely to be badly burned. 
In Lockport, N. Y., the operator of a machine was burned 
to death in the booth. In Cleveland, Ohio, an operator, fright¬ 
ened by an explosion, jumped from a window and was killed. 


-83- 


LESSON NO. 35. 

Barns and Stables. 

SMOKEHOUSES AND KETTLES. 

A farmer’s barn is likely to burn down when a fire is start¬ 
ed in it, because there is no fire department to call, and no 
mother is there to empty the water pail on it. 

Sweating hay is the greatest cause of this loss, for it pro¬ 
duces spontaneous combustion and draws lightning. 

Why does hay sweat? The cells in the gras make hay go 
on living and breathing for some time after the grass is cut. 
This makes heat. The seeds in the grass begin to sprout, and 
tiny germs in the blades live for several weeks in the hay-mow. 
These three causes make a great heat, and, if the mow is full, 
there is little air to carry heat away. The center of the hay 
pile becomes as hot as boiling water. 

THE STEAM FROM HAY. 

This great heat makes the juice in the grass give off steam. 
Above every mow, in which there is new hay, there is a fun¬ 
nel shaped cloud of steam. It is much easier for lightning to 
spill down this funnel of moist air than to go through dry air, 
to reach the earth. 

The new hay, in the center of the mow, after becoming as 
hot as boiling water, begins to char. The charcoal sucks oxy¬ 
gen from the little air left, and is then so hot that it bursts 
into flame. Shredded fodder sometimes sets itself afire. 

Whether it is lightning or spontaneous combustion that 
fires the hay, the whole barn seems to take fire at once. In 
such fires the machinery, horses, and cattle within the barn 
are likely to be burned. 

LIGHTNING AND MATCHES. 

Lightning burns more than one-fourth the barns destroyed 
by fire. To save them from lightning they should have light¬ 
ning-rods to carry the thunder bolt down, outside the barn 
wall, to the ground. 

Carelessness with matches burns many barns and stables. 
Matches are stuck in cracks, in hat bands, or in anything that 
is handy, and then the farmer, or hostler (or it may be the 
horse, or cow), steps on one of them and sets it off. The 
litter on the floor blazes, and the barn burns. 


_ 8 4 - 

Lanterns are the most dangerous things used in barns; they 
are often broken, or upset. 

SMOKING IN THE BARN. 

Sometimes a half smoked cigar rolls off from the place in 
the barn where it was carelessly laid, and starts a fire in hay or 
straw. Boys who are foolish enough .to smoke cigarettes often 
hide in barns, and set them afire with cigarette stubs or 
matches. 

Sleepy hostlers start fires in livery stables, while caring 
for horses brought in at night. 

If the oils used in greasing harness and axles are spilled 
upon stable litter, they are likely to take fire. 

OTHER CAUSES. 

The use of gasolene in barns and stables starts some barn 
fires, though more are started by sparks from railway engines 
and steam threshing machines. Many more are started by 
children, playing with the fire, or matches, or burning rub¬ 
bish. 

About twenty smoke houses are burned each year, because 
people do not watch the fires in them. Six buildings are burn¬ 
ed each fall by smoking meat in barrels or boxes. 

Thousands of dollars worth of property is burned each year, 
because kettles of grease, pitch, or paint are allowed to “boil 
over.’’ 

RATS AND MICE. 

The rat causes a few fires, by eating matches. His eye 
teeth, two above and two below, are long, so that he can gnaw 
holes to get into boxes and rooms. The front and side of these 
teeth is hard enough to cut iron, but the back of them is softer. 
The teeth, by wearing away at the back, leave an edge like a 
chisel. The eye teeth grow during all of the rat’s life. If they 
are not used much, he must file them off by biting something 
hard, or they will grow so long that he cannot shut his mouth. 
Because the parlor match has glass in it, he files his teeth on 
that. Sometimes he files them off with lead pipe or electric 
wire. Rats like the taste of the phosphorus that is in the 
match heads. When thev nibble these match heads, they may 
set their nests afire; and then the buildings are burned. 

Alice mav cause a verv few fires. Nibbling near the heads 
of the matches, they may explode them. The rats and niice 
like to build their homes in warm corners, where sparks from 
chimneys may light the fine litter of which their nests are 
made. 


- 85 - 

LESSON NO. 36. 

Smokers and Rubbish 

THE VALUE OF BUILDINGS THEY BURN. 

Smokers set fire to about 2,000 buildings a year by careless¬ 
ness in throwing away their cigar stubs and emptying their 
pipes. As many more buildings are burned by their careless¬ 
ness with matches. Fires are started by cigar and cigarette 
stubs dropped upon heaps of rubbish, or thrown into wooden 
spittoons or waste-paper baskets. 

A number of fires started in barns soon after men who had 
been smoking left them. A great fire was started by the driver 
of a delivery wagon who threw a cigar stub over a fence into 
a pile of trash. Careless smokers start many fires in wood¬ 
sheds and in new buildings. 

PIPES AND CIGARETTES. 

Burning tobacco from a pipe is more likely to set fire to 
litter, trash or rubbish than is a cigar stub. A cigarette is 
worse than the glowing tobacco from a pipe. A Turkish cigar¬ 
ette, if let alone, will burn for five minutes after it is lighted. 
One of them is sure to start a fire if dropped upon waste paper. 

A cigar stub was dropped upon the dress of a lady sitting 
in the grand-stand at a state fair. Her dress was soon in 
flames, but an assistant state fire marshal tore it off and saved 
her life. 

A cigarette stub set fire to the dress of a lady who was 
standing- in the street. She was burned to death. 

RUBBISH CATCHES FIRE. 

Twenty million dollars a year would not pay the losses 
caused in the United States from letting rubbish and trash 
gather in buildings. A great many fires caused by flying sparks 
would not have happened if there had been no trash for them 
to light upon and burn. When children play with matches and 
fire-crackers and drop them it is the rubbish lying around that 
spreads the fiames. Old paper is usually found in rubbish heaps 

and it takes fire very easily. 

THE ATTIC. 

All sorts of things that will burn easily are put away in 
the attic. The attic, or garret, is the hottest place in the house 
in summer. F'ew attics have opening's to let out the heat. Varn¬ 
ished furniture, rags smeared with grease, painting oils and 


— 86 - 


children's broken toys are stored in the attic. When the hot 
sun beats on the roof, the oils and greasy rags are liable to 

take fire from the heat. 

A mother went to the attic to get her husband’s old suit 
to cut down for her little son. She found a hole burned in the 
coat by matches which had been lighted by the heat. Some 
charred matchsticks were there to prove it. If the coat had 
been near anything that would burn easily, the house would 
have been fired. 

Attics and garrets should have openings in both ends so 
movements of air will carry away the heat made by the chim¬ 
neys and. by the sun beating upon the roof. 

The stove is the only safe place for greasy rags; this in¬ 
cludes rags which have been used to wipe oil from the sewing 
machine. 

Rubbish should not be kept in boxes made of wood or 
pasteboard. 

CLOSETS. 

Sweepings from the floor should not be left under furniture 
or in closets. Such sweepings are liable to take fire “spon¬ 
taneously,” -or from a flying match-head. Sawdust left in a 
corner after sweeping is very likely to become hot enough to 
fire itself. Greasy overalls in a tight closet may take fire. 

Many people put things that will burn easily in closets 
under stairways. If fires start in such closets the way out of 
the upper stories is soon cut off. 

Furnace ashes in the cellar have so much fine coal and litter 
in them that they are liable to spontaneous combustion, if rain¬ 
ed upon through an open window. 

THE FIRE MARSHAL’S DUTIES. 

The state fire marshal is named by the state auditor and 
commissioner of insurance, ex-officio, and he has an office in 
the state house. 

The truth about every fire (in the state) which burns goods 
or a building is told him in a letter. If he thinks that the 
man who owned the building burned it to get insurance money, 
or that some one fired it because he was “mad” at the owner, 
or that it was set afire by some crazy person, he directs one of 
the men who work for him to learn the whole truth and have 
the guilty person arrested. 

A crazy person who is found guilty of burning a building 
is sent to a state hospital for the insane. One who burns prop¬ 
erty to get insurance money, or because he is angry at the own¬ 
er, is sent to the penitentiary. 


-87- 


LESSON NO. 37. 

The Lightning Stroke; 

WHAT CAUSES THUNDER STORMS. 

The thunder storm usually begins to form in the morning 
of a hot day. The damp air near the ground has in it very, 
very small drops of water. When they grow large enough they 
make a fog. This damp air, when warmed by the sunshine of 
the earth, grows lighter and floats up into the sky. There the 
cooler air moving about causes several of these tiny drops to 
get together to form a larger one. These drops floating in the 
sky make the clouds. Masses of white clouds seen on a sunny 
day are called “thunderheads.” A cloud is often as thick as 
it is wide. One traveling through a cloud, as one may near the 
top of a mountain, sees only a heavy fog. 

The tiny drops rubbed by the air, gather electricity just 
as the cat’s back, or a piece of sealing-wax does when rubbed. 
So, every cloud has electricity in it. As the amount of elec¬ 
tricity grows greater the cloud grows blacker. When the 
cloud is thick enough to shut out the sun cooler air causes the 

o 

tiny drops to “cuddle up” and form larger and larger drops. 
Soon these drops get too heavy for the wind to carry and they 
fall, making rain. You have often noticed a rush of cool wind 
just before a hard rain. 

ELECTRICIT Y IN THE SKY. 

When the amount of electricity in a cloud becomes much 
greater than that in the earth, or in another cloud near it, part 
of it will be drawn off. Electricity when it jumps is the thun¬ 
derbolt which makes lightning. What we see is the streak of 
air made red-hot by the passing of the thunderbolt. There 
are many more lightning flashes from one cloud to another 
than from a cloud to the ground. The flashes between clouds 
are often several miles long; from the cloud to the ground 
they are one to three miles. One lightning stroke in about 
one hundred travels from the earth to the cloud. 

The jumping of electricity from the feed-wire of a street 
car to the trolley wheel, makes a flash which is the same as 
lightning. One often thinks he can tell by the flash where a 
thunderbolt started and where it struck. He cannot. The 
flash travels sixty thousand miles a second and that is too fast 


for one's eyes to follow. If the flash was forked you may be 
sure it struck at the forked end. 

There is always some electricity in the air, the amount being 

largest high in the sky. A Russian has run a machine with 
electricity brought down by wires from balloons. A German 
has figured out how much the electricity in a lightning siroke 
would be worth to sell, if he should make a machine to catch 
one. These gentlemen must agree with the poet Emerson who 
wrote: 


“The lightning has run masterless too long; 

He must to school and learn his verb and noun, 

And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage.” 

We now use thunderbolts to pull us in cars and to- light our 
houses. But they are man-made in the dynamo; not cloud-made 
in the sky. 

In learning to control strong currents of electricity from the 
dynamo we have also learned that we can keep lightning 
strokes from burning our houses, by putting over each house a 
thick rod of steel or copper, called a lightning rod. 

THUNDER. 


What makes the thunder? 

When a bolt of lightning rushes to the earth is causes waves 
in the air, which makes sounds in our ears, just as piano wires, 
when struck, move up and down making waves in air which we 
hear as music. 

Thunder is said to “roll.” This is because several bolts of 
electricity fall one after another; sometimes as many as forty 
in less than a second. The first bolt makes a hole through the 
air down which the others ciuickly fall. Each bolt adds a noise. 

You have often dodged from a thunder clap. This is use¬ 
less. The danger is passed before you hear of it. One struck 
by lightning knows nothing about it at the time. 

The waves which make sound do not travel as fast as those 
that give sight. If lightning strikes one mile away it is five 
seconds before the thunder is heard. If you hold a watch so as 
to count the seconds, you can tell just how far it is to where 
the lightning struck. 

Electricity moving through the air forms a nitrate which 
makes the ground richer. Ozone also is formed. Ozone makes 
us feel fresh after a thunder storm. Some folks say thunder 
sours milk. It is the ozone that sours it. The air is alwavs 


—89— 


fine after a storm because it has been washed. Fine particles 
of soot and dust carrying disease germs* and the gases from 
smoke floating in the air, are taken to the ground by the mil¬ 
lion of rain drops. 

Few storms travel more than 100 miles. 

In the Northern states the. number of thunderstorms one 
sees in a summer is always about 30, but the number of per¬ 
sons killed and houses burned by lightning grow greater every 
year. One reason for this is that the forest trees, which are 
nature’s lightning rods, are being cut down. 


- 90 - 


LESSON NO. 38. 

Protection from Thunderbolts. 

THE USE OF THE LIGHTNING ROD. 

In some states as much as three hundred thousand dollars’ 
worth of property is burned by lightning every year and fifty 
persons are killed by it. If these persons were made to breathe, 
in the way you have learned in one of your lessons, many of 
them would not die. The number of people stunned by light¬ 
ning. in these states every summer, is about 300. On the farms 
more fires are caused by lightning than by anything else. 

One building in every three struck by lightning is in a 
town or city. Few of the high buildings in cities are struck, 
because electricity can move easily through the water pipes, 
gas pipes, or metal frames of the buildings. 

Lightning strikes more houses than barns. Barns having 
new hay in them are most likely to be struck. This is be¬ 
cause the hay is “sweating,” as the farmers say, and warm, 
moist air is rising from the barn to the clouds, just as.moist 
air heated by the sun goes up to make a thunder-cloud. Mois¬ 
ture in air makes it easier for electricty to pass through it. 

DODGING THUNDERBOLTS. 0 

During a thunderstorm do not stand under a tree. The 
danger is greatest under a tall tree having big leaves and a 
rough bark like the oak. The beech tree with its smooth bark 
and pointed leaves, is less dangerous. Do not stay near wet 
horses or cattle. The steam rising from rain-wet animals makes 
a weak place for electricity from the clouds to break through 
the air. One is in less danger from being killed by lightning 
in a house than in a barn. 

It is not dangerous to hold a hatchet or a pair of scissors, 
or to be near a gas or water pipe during a storm. When you 
hear that it is dangerous ,remember that pieces of iron or steel 
which do not reach the ground, but have air all around them, 
are no more likely to be struck by lightning than that much 
wood. Houses having gas and water pipes in them are not so 
likely to be struck as those that have none; It is foolish to 
say one is safe under a feather-bed or in an iron bed-stead. 

Stay near the center of a room during a thunderstorm; 
lightning is likely to run down the rain-wet sides of the house. 
Do not stand in an open door. 


—9i— 


A lightning rod over a house or barn carries the thunder¬ 
bolt down outside to the grund so that it kills no one and noth¬ 
ing is set afire. 

WHAT IS A LIGHTNING ROD? 

A lightning rod is a piece of steel or copper which runs over 
the building the long way. Both of its ends are buried in the 
ground. The ends must reach down to earth that is kept moist 

by the water which fills our wells. It is the water in the 

\ 

ground which the lightning jumps from the clouds to reach. 
If the rod does not go down to wet earth, it is of no use, but 
it is not dangerous. Standing up from the rod are pieces of 
wire about a yard long. At the top of each of these pieces are 
sharp prongs made of some metal which will stay bright. The 
more prongs the better. A piece of rod should stand near each 
chimney. The chimney of the cook stove needs one most for 
from that chimney moist air rise on summer days when there 
are the most lightning strokes. 

There is danger from lightning striking tall trees that send 
out their branches over our homes. The lightning may come 
from a tree to the chimney or down the side of the house. A 
wire clothes-line should not be run from a tree to the house. 
One summer a farmer’s wife was hanging clothes on a line put 
up in this way, when a thunderbolt struck the tree, came along 
the wire and through her to the ground. She fell dead. The 
wire from the tree to where she stood was converted to gas. 

Lightning does many strange things. It may pass down 
through a house, pulling out nails but not setting the house 
afire. Persons killed by lightning while sitting are left so stif 
fened that they do not fall over. When lightning strikes a 
man it is likely to tear off his shoes because it spreads with 
an explosion when it reaches the ground. 


/ 


- 92 - 


LESSON NO. 39. 

The Less Dangerous Fireworks, 

WHICH BURN BUT SELDOM KILL. 

Many fireworks used on the Fourth of July are dangerous; 
they are likely to kill those who use them. The Fourth of 
July keeps the firemen busy because fireworks set so many 
buildings afire. 

Before the Fourth comes all trash in the yards should be 
taken away or kept wet. Stables and outhouses should be kept 
closed and cellar windows tightly shut. 

On every Fourth more than 600 buildings are fired and 
more than 200 persons killed by fireworks. Children are burned 
to death by the fireworks setting their clothes afire and people 
killed by frightened horses running away. On every Fourth 
more than 2,000 children lose fingers or eyes. 

Red fire and torches hurt no one and the pinwheel does lit¬ 
tle harm because it is fastened to a tree or fence. 

TORPEDOES AND CHINESE CRACKERS. 

A common torpedo has in it a wafer, like a toy pistol cap, 
holding chlorate of potash. On this are a number of pieces of 
gravel. When a torpedo strikes anything the blow from the 
gravel explodes the chlorate. The larger and more dangerous 
torpedoes contain chlorate and two other dangerous things. 

A boy lost three fingers by trying to drive a nail through a 
streetcar torpedo. These torpedoes are made of chlorate and 
sulphur with ground glass or sand. One maker puts in them a 
fulminate which is very dangerous. 

The small Chinese firecracker burns more houses than any 
other kind of fireworks. The paper on the Chinese firecracker 
glows for some time after it explodes and one of them thrown 
into trash or through a window is likely to start a fire. These 
crackers are' made of rolls of paper wilh a cork of mud in each 
end and common gunpowder is placed in the rolls. It is cheaper 
to buy crackers that are made in China than to make them 
here, because Chinamen work for very little pay. 

THE ROMAN CANDLE. 

If the Roman candle is well made it is not likely to injure 
any one. If it is exploded in the street, it will not fire houses. 
If the ‘“stars’’ in the candle are packed too tightly, it may come 
out at the wrong end and hurt your hand: The man who makes 


- 93 - 


Roman candles puts the lower end ol one in an iron socket 
when he wishes to see it go off. The best kind of these can¬ 
dles has at the lower end a pointed stick which can be stuck in 
the ground. Many of the flower pots and fountains are very 
beautiful and only those that whistle are dangerous. The 
whistling kind should not be used. 

The hot air balloon kills no one but it fires many houses. 
The torch under it gives off a hot blaze for more than ten 
minutes and it sure to set afire any shingle roof upon which it 
falls. 

THE SKY-ROCKET. 

Sky-rockets, if aimed high in the air, burn few buildings 
because the falling stick is seldom afire. In Pittsburg a falling 
stick struck a baby's head, killing it in its mother’s arms. 

Place a sky-rocket in a V-shaped trough when you set it 
off. Firing it any other way may cause it to go through a 
window or a person. A common-sized rocket will go through 
the body of a man. A flying rocket will make a hole through 
the heaviest plate-glass window. 

The sparks from the German sparkler will not burn the 
skin because they cool too quickly. But one of these sparks 
will ignite the fuse of any other firework. A spark from one of 
them lighted a rocket in a pile of fireworks in a Cleveland 
store causing death to six persons. 

HOPPERS AND CHASERS. 

The “grass hoppers” and “devil chasers,” which travel along 
the ground while exploding are likely to pop into rubbish piles 
or cellar windows and start a fire. 

A new firework called “son-of-a-gun” is like a lozenge an 
inch across. If stepped on it makes more than twenty snap 
explosions. It may be great fun to place them where people 
may step upon them but it is not so funny when a lady steps 
on one and has her dress burned— perhap is burned to death! 
They are likely to jump into a window or into trash, or cloth¬ 
ing, or one’s eyes. 

More children are burned to death by small crackers than 
by any other kind of firework. The small crackers set their 
clothing afire. The prettiest fireworks are the least danger¬ 
ous and fireworks which go up in the air are safer than those 
that are exploded near the earth. 


LESSON NO. 40. 

Deadly Fireworks 

WHICH SHOULD NOT BE USED AT' ALL. 

The toy cannon is a great joy to a boy blit it kills many 
children. By kicking it hurts the one firing it and by bursting 
it causes death. 

The toy balloon does not hurt the one who sends it up, 
but under it is a torch of shavings and rosin and this blazes 
for nine minutes and makes the gas which raises the balloon. 
If the paper of the balloon takes fire from the torch then the 
torch (still burning) will fall. It may drop on a roof of wood 
and set the building afire. In Dayton, Ohio, five buildings 
were set afire in one day by fire balloons. 

Anything which explodes with greater force than gunpow¬ 
der is called a “high explosive.” Chlorate is a high explosive. 
The very dangerous fireworks contain a mixture of chlorate of 
potash, sulphur and charcoal. This is the chlorate of potash 
so much used for sore throats. Not long ago a man put a 
lozenge of it in a pocket in which, were matches. It made 
a hole in his vest and burned him, too. 

SHOOTING CANES. 

The shooting cane has an iron boot. In the leg of this boot 
are placed lozenges that explode when the end of the cane is 
struck against the pavement. One explodes each time the cane 
is struck. These dangerous explosives are made of chlorate of 
potash and sulphur mixed with sand, powdered glass or coal 
and they are held together by a little gum. One’s foot is like¬ 
ly to be hurt when a lozenge explodes and half a dozen may 
explode at once, tearing off a leg. 

A German toy called “fix rohr,” has in it the same explo¬ 
sive that is used in the shooting cane. The explosive is in the 
small end of a cork which fits into one end of a brass tube. 
A rod, or plunger, is driven into the cork and it flies out with 
great force and noise. Three men in Boston were killed when 
a box of these corks exploded on a wharf. The floor timbers 
were torn out. 

Bombs should not be sold at all. 

THE CANNON CRACKER. 

The cannon cracker is a murderer. One went off in a 
boy’s hands and the only part of either hand that could be 



—95 


found afterward was one little finger. In Cincinnati one 
went off while a man held it under his arm. He was torn in 
pieces and no one could tell who he was, until they dug his 
watch out of a telegraph pole into which it was blown. They 
found his name in the watch. 

Sometimes the lighted fuse in a cannon cracker goes out. 
Such a cracker should be let alone for ten minutes, then it 
must be soaked well in water and burie^. 

LOCK JAW. 

Lockjaw is caused by one of the smallest of germs. The 
germ is like a very short thread and is so small it cannot be 
seen. It grows by the million in the bowels of horses. There 
always are millions of them in the street dust. The germ 
dries up when it comes into the air; it does no harm so long 
as there is air around it. The germs remain alive in ice or in 
boiling water. Doctors have kept them on splinters for ten 
years and then given lockjaw to mice by prickling them with 
the splinters. When they get into one’s flesh, away from the 
air, they grow in numbers very fast, because each germ chokes 
itself in two in the middle. One of these germs will have 
grand-children within an hour. While they are growing in 
numbers, under the skin, they give out a poisonous juice. It 
is a week or two after the germs have begun work before 
one can tell that they are there. One does not know they are 
working until the poison has had time to travel along a nerve 
from the wound to the spine and brain. 

A HORRIBLE DEATH. 

When this poison reaches the brain death is sure to follow, 
after days of horrible suffering. The suffering that lockjaw 
brings is more terrible than that caused by strychnine poison¬ 
ing and a mad dog bite put together. 

Any small wound made bv fireworks should be taken at 
once to a doctor, who will lay the wound open so that air can 
get to the very bottom of it. This is necessary because a boy 
playing with fireworks nearly always has street dust on his 
hands and the street dust carries these terrible germs. 

More than one hundred boys die from wounds made by 
fireworks on every Fourth. Sometimes more than three hun¬ 
dred boys die from such wounds. 


96 - 




The most deadly thing used on the Fourth is the toy pistol 
for firing blank cartridges. Pieces of the paper wads, wnich 
take the place of balls in these cartridges, are blown under the 
skin. These pieces carry the germs of lockjaw. 









Lb de ’12 






















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